Mariposa nodded, then feeling that she must say something, she murmured:
“My mother died. I was not well, and I couldn’t see him.”
“Exactly, I understand just how it was. And it wasn’t a bit fair, that simply because you didn’t happen to be able to go to the office at that time, you should lose your chance of a musical education and all that might have come out of it. Now, Miss Moreau, it’s my intention to carry out my husband’s wishes.”
She looked at Mariposa, not smiling, nor condescending, but with a hard earnestness. The girl raised her eyes and the two glances met.
“His wishes with regard to me?” said Mariposa, with a questioning inflection.
“That’s it. I want you to go to Paris, as he wanted you to go. I want you to study to be a singer. I’ll pay it all—education, masters, and a monthly sum for living besides. I don’t think, from what I hear, that it would be necessary for you to study more than two or three years. Then you would make your appearance as a grand opera prima donna, or concert singer, as your teachers thought fit. I don’t know much about it, but I believe they can’t always tell about a voice right off at the start. Anyway, I’d see to it that yours got every chance for the best development.”
She paused.
“I—I’m—afraid it will be impossible,” said Mariposa, in a low voice.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the elder woman, sitting upright in her surprise. “Why?”
Mariposa had come to the house of Mrs. Shackleton burning with a sense of the wrongs her mother had suffered at the hands of this woman and her dead husband. She had thought little of what the interview would be like, and now, with the keen, hard, and astonished eyes of Bessie upon her, she felt that something more than pride and indignation must help her through. The world’s diplomacy of tongue and brain was an unsuspected art to her.