“Just so,” Snell agreed, and after a brief pause looked up with a query that at the moment sounded startlingly irrelevant.
“Do you know Signor Cacciola, Miss Winston?”
She stared in astonishment, scarcely grasping the question, especially as he mispronounced the name.
“He’s a music master or something of the sort; lives at Rivercourt Mansions West,” Snell added.
“Signor Cacciola? Why, of course I know him; he’s my singing master—‘the maestro’ we always call him,” she answered, knitting her pretty brows in bewilderment, while Austin Starr, watching Snell, screwed his lips in the form of whistling, and listened intently for what might follow.
“He comes here often?”
“Yes. At least he does when he is coaching me for a special concert or anything like that. He has been here every morning this week except to-day.”
“You did not expect him to-day?”
“No. I was going to the wedding; and besides, he has an engagement every Thursday—at Blackheath, I think.”