“Listen to me, Miss O’Finn,” said Kenrick earnestly. “I am a business man. That is my inheritance from a hard-working father. But I have one passion, and that is not business. My passion is the opera; my dream is to make enough money to be able to help the opera in England. But I am rich enough to do something for the individual artist, and I beg you to let me help you. Let me guarantee you what you would usually earn on the provincial stage. Let me pay for your lessons. The maestro I want to teach you is an old friend of mine. If at the end of six months he tells me that you are not the finest contralto of the time, why, then you can go back to your life on tour. At the worst you will have spent six months in Italy to gratify the whim of an eccentric business man whose dreams are all of art. At the best you will be able to do what you like for your daughter in another ten years, and long, long before that. We’ll not talk about it any more to-night. Go home and sleep over my proposal. Think over it for a week. I must be back in town to-morrow. If at the end of a week you feel that you can risk six months in Italy to have the world at your feet, send me a line, and I will pay into your account the necessary funds. You can leave this absurd company when you like.”
“Och, I would have to give a fortnight’s notice,” said Nancy quickly.
Kenrick smiled.
“Very well, give your fortnight’s notice. To-day is the eleventh. If you settle by next Saturday that will be the fifteenth. On the first of November you can quit the fogs and be on your way to Naples. It will probably be fine weather. It usually is about then in the south of Italy.”
“You seem to have made up your mind that I’m going to accept your generosity,” Nancy said.
“There is no generosity in gratifying one’s own desires,” Kenrick observed. “But if you have any feelings of pride on the subject, why, you can pay me back when your position is secure.”
“But why, really, are you doing this?” Nancy asked, looking deep into the eyes of her host.
“Really and truly because I believe you have a great voice and may become a great singer, and because if you did I should get as much satisfaction from your success as if I had a voice and were a great singer myself,” he replied.
The thin laughter of the chorus-girls at the other end of the room commented upon this grave assertion. The waiter put up a grubby hand to hide a yawn.
When Nancy woke next morning she felt like the heroine of an Arabian Nights tale who has been carried half across Asia by a friendly djinn. But when she called at the theatre for her letters, the following note was a proof that she had not been dreaming: