He seemed touched and pleased; and the conversation at supper-time turned a good deal on the children. He asked anxiously after Mr. Boniface, and then they discussed the concert of the previous night, and he spoke a little of Donati’s kindness to him. Then, while Sigrid and Swanhild were busy in the kitchen, she told him what she knew of Donati’s previous life, and how it was that he had gained this extraordinary power of sympathy and insight.
“I never met any one like him,” said Frithiof. “He is a hero and a saint, if ever there was one, yet without one touch of the asceticism which annoys one in most good people. That the idol of the operatic stage should be such a man as that seems to me wonderful.”
“You mean because the life is a trying one?”
“Yes; because such very great popularity might be supposed to make a man conceited, and such an out-of-the-way voice might make him selfish and heedless of others, and to be so much run after might make him consider himself above ordinary mortals, instead of being ready, as he evidently is, to be the friend of any one who is in need.”
“I am so glad you like him, and that you saw so much of him,” said Cecil. “I wonder if you would just see me into a cab now, for I ought to be going.”
He was pleased that she had asked him to do this; and when she had said good-by to Sigrid and Swanhild, and was once more alone with him, walking through the big court-yard, he could not resist alluding to it.
“It is good of you,” he said, “to treat me as though I were under no cloud. You have cheered me wonderfully.”
“Oh,” she said, “it is not good of me—you must not think that I believe you under a cloud at all. Nothing would ever make me believe that you had anything whatever to do with that five-pound note. It is a mystery that will some day be cleared up.”
“That is what Signor Donati said. He, too, believed in me in spite of appearances being against me. And Sigrid says the same. With three people on my side I can wait more patiently.”
Cecil had spoken very quietly, and quite without the passionate vehemence which had betrayed her secret to Sigrid, for now she was on her guard; but her tone conveyed to Frithiof just the trust and friendliness which she wished it to convey; and he went home again with a fresh stock of hope and courage in his heart.