But Eleanor brushed the inquiry aside as though she had not heard it.
"And to think," she muttered, more to herself than to Margaret, "that she is going to have lessons from Martelli."
"But why not?" said Margaret in a puzzled tone. "Is she not nice? Is she not a good teacher?"
"Nice! A good teacher! Have you never heard of Margherita Martelli?" Eleanor ejaculated in a tone of such unbounded amazement that Margaret began to blush for her own ignorance, and it was in a shame-faced voice that she owned that until the other day when her grandfather had told her that she was to have lessons from a Madame Martelli she had never heard the name.
"Oh, well," said Eleanor, calming down and laughing at her own impetuosity, "now I come to think of it, I was just as ignorant a few months ago, but I was reading the autobiography of a great concert director the other day and in it he speaks of Margherita Martelli and the brief but wonderful career she had. She only sang for two or three years, and had scored triumph after triumph when a sudden illness deprived her of her voice, and she vanished from the stage as suddenly as she had come on to it. I had no idea that she lived in England now or that she gave lessons. Oh, you lucky, lucky girl!" she added, a note of deep, uncontrolled envy in her voice. "Just imagine. You are going to have lessons from Martelli. And you are not out of your mind with joy. What a wicked, wicked waste it is!"
"Is it not?" Margaret agreed, not a whit offended at the frankness of this remark. "I do not wish to learn singing. I know my voice possesses no merit whatever, and, moreover, I am not always sure whether I am singing in tune or not."
"Well, it is something to know you don't know," said Eleanor. "Not every one who sings out of tune could or would own as much. Oh, what a horrible, topsy-turvy world it is, to be sure! Here are you going to have the thing that I covet more than anything else in the whole wide world—singing lessons from a first-rate teacher, which you don't appreciate in the least—and here am I, compelled to waste the whole summer holidays doing nothing. And if you would like to be me, as you say you would, how much more wouldn't I give to be you, if only for a month!"
"Yes," said Margaret, with a long-drawn sigh; "it does seem a matter for considerable regret that we cannot change places, and you be me and I be you. If only a fairy would pass this way and transform us with a waive of her magic wand into each other how much happier we both should be, and how delighted Madame Martelli would be to get you for a pupil instead of me!"
"Don't," said Eleanor, with a little muffled groan. She could not play with the idea as Margaret was doing, her feelings were far too deeply engaged for that.
Margaret sighed again. It distressed her to see any one so unhappy as Eleanor looked at that moment, and she began to realise that her longing for a freer, different life to the one she had hitherto led was but a puny thing when compared to the fierce desire that consumed Eleanor to be given an opportunity to cultivate her voice. If only she could help her in some way. But what could she do? She might ask Mrs. Murray to allow Eleanor to share her lessons, but she was afraid that the request would not be granted. She knew that her grandfather would not allow her to associate with any girl of her own age, certainly not with one whose acquaintance she had made in so casual a manner. And besides, even if her grandfather had done such an unlikely thing as to give his consent to the arrangement, how could Eleanor find the time to come out to Windy Gap for her lessons?