“I cannot sing to-day, Mr. Ames.” Carlota met his surprised eyes serenely. “It is impossible.”
“But just this one—” He stopped abruptly, warned by the expression of her face.
Mrs. Carrington Nevins raised her lorgnette, the slenderest excuse for one in carven tortoise shell and platinum, gazing at the girl amusedly.
“My dear, I believe you are temperamental like all singers should be. It is your prerogative. But you must remember all that Mr. Ames is doing for you, and try to obey him. Isn’t she a dear little thing, Nathalie?”
“Do you live right down here in the Sicilian quarter?” asked Nathalie eagerly. “It’s so funny. I made mother drive through there to-day and the car made quite a sensation.”
Carlota turned her head and looked at her in a haughty, detached way.
“I have never been there. I am a Roman.”
CHAPTER VII
Carlota stood aside to let them pass down the narrow stairs. In the half light from the dusty skylight overhead she seemed like a shadow excepting for the light in her eyes. The sunlight from the studio’s south window sent a lane of gold through the open door, and she watched Nathalie as she laid her hand in Ames’s lingeringly.
“I shall love it here,” she heard her say, in her rather plaintive, appealing way. “And I want you to be sure and stay for dinner Tuesday. You can suggest things for our Italian fête next month, can’t he, mother?”