So the name of the greatest teacher of singing of this age did not convey much to Myra's mind. But Garth Dalmain sat up.
"I say! No wonder you take it coolly. Why, Velma herself was a pupil of the great madame."
"That is how it happens that I know her rather well," said Jane. "I am here to-day because I was to have played her accompaniment."
"I see," said Garth. "And now you have to do both. 'Land's sake!' as Mrs. Parker Bangs says when you explain who's who at a Marlborough House garden party. But you prefer playing other people's accompaniments, to singing yourself, don't you?"
Jane's slow smile dawned again.
"I prefer singing," she said, "but accompanying is more useful."
"Of course it is," said Garth. "Heaps of people can sing a little, but very few can accompany properly."
"Jane," said Myra, her grey eyes looking out lazily from under their long black lashes, "if you have had singing lessons, and know some songs, why hasn't the duchess turned you on to sing to us before this?"
"For a sad reason," Jane replied. "You know her only son died eight years ago? He was such a handsome, talented fellow. He and I inherited our love of music from our grandfather. My cousin got into a musical set at college, studied with enthusiasm, and wanted to take it up professionally. He had promised, one Christmas vacation, to sing at a charity concert in town, and went out, when only just recovering from influenza, to fulfil this engagement. He had a relapse, double pneumonia set in, and he died in five days from heart failure. My poor aunt was frantic with grief; and since then any mention of my love of music makes her very bitter. I, too, wanted to take it up professionally, but she put her foot down heavily. I scarcely ever venture to sing or play here."
"Why not elsewhere?" asked Garth Dalmain. "We have stayed about at the same houses, and I had not the faintest idea you sang."