"Could I get the training of an opera singer there?" Juliet inquired.
"You could be trained for anything," the signor answered, with a slight curious twitch of the mouth. "You would have the finest facilities for cultivating your voice."
Juliet went home fired with a determination to go to Milan in the following autumn, if she could persuade her mother to accompany her. But Mrs. Tracy was averse to a plan which she foresaw would lead to Juliet's making her début as an operatic singer. She raised objections and suggested alternatives till Juliet's patience was exhausted, and she declared that, rather than not go, she would go alone.
But Mrs. Tracy was not much afraid that she would make good her words. Experience had taught her that Juliet did not invariably accomplish all that she vowed to do. Juliet was in many things very much of a child yet. She had never taken a long journey alone. The unknown, whilst it fascinated her, was yet not without its terrors. Tenderly taken care of all her days, she could not imagine what it would be to depend entirely upon herself, far from the mother who had always made life smooth for her. Her heart sank and her courage failed whenever she tried to picture herself living a lonely, unprotected life as an art student abroad.
"If only I knew what to do! If only I had someone to help me!" she would say to herself.
She said it one day to Algernon Chalcombe, when Flossie had beguiled her into a meeting with her which proved to be a meeting with her brother also. They met in one of the parks, and Flossie soon strolled off with the dogs to a pond, leaving Algernon free to talk as he would to Juliet. Algernon Chalcombe naturally made the most of the opportunity. Juliet was told that if she needed a helper, he was at her command. There was nothing he desired so much as to serve her, if she would give him the right. He could help her to the end she desired, and he would; but she must trust herself wholly to him. He loved her better than anyone else in the world. No one could love her as he did. Could she not love him a little in return?
And gradually Juliet allowed herself to be persuaded where she was already more than half won.
She whispered that she thought she could. She let him take her hand and hold it in his. She even said that perhaps some day, though not for a great while yet, she would be his wife. At least, she was sure that she would never wish to marry anyone else.
[CHAPTER XIV]
TEMPTATION