“No; he was tired with the heat. I never meant to let him come. I am sure I’m early enough. They’re just going to begin.”
And Hugh sat down by his mother, and listened decorously to an instrumental piece. It was still early, some of the company were still wandering in the gardens, and the windows were open, letting in the soft evening air. But some wax candles were lighted at one end of the drawing-room, where the performers were gathered, and as Hugh, after listening to one or two songs and to a violin solo, was politely suppressing a yawn, a young lady stepped into the light. It was Violante—Violante, the same as when she had stood in the hot Italian sunlight, and sung to her father’s pupils. The same, and yet different. It seemed to Hugh’s confused eyes that she had turned into a fashionable lady, in her trailing white muslin, with its puffs and flounces, with her soft, curling hair, done up in an attempt at the prevailing fashion. She looked taller, older somehow—more unmistakably a beauty; but not, he thought, at first—his own Violante. She held her head up too, and if she was frightened managed to conceal it. Hugh made a snatch at his mother’s programme.
“Who—what—how?”
“Don’t you know?” said Clarissa Venning, who was near them. “Miss Mattei’s voice has come back. I suppose she will sing again in public; but this you know is quite in a private capacity. She was asked to come with Florence.”
Hugh looked at the programme:—“Song.—Miss Violante Mattei.”
He was just about to commit himself to a vehement exclamation of astonishment that no one had thought of telling him she was going to sing—how could they overlook such a fact?—when the old, sweet notes fell again on his ear, as lovely as ever he thought, and he listened, breathless, till they ceased amid loud applause and exclamations of admiration.
Violante smiled and curtseyed her thanks, with elaborate grace, and as no young lady amateur would have thought of doing.
“She has such pretty foreign manners,” cried a lady; and one of the young men of the house, laughing, tossed her a little bunch of flowers, and she picked it up and curtseyed again, just as she had been taught to do by old Madame Cellini, long ago in Civita Bella.
She was to sing once again, and Hugh waited in breathless expectation; but though the applause was as ardent as ever, she only acknowledged it this time by a dignified little bow, and retreated.
“Oh,” said one of the Dysarts, “someone has been telling her her pretty curtsey was not selon les règles. What a shame!”