“That is so, Signor. It is my great grief. I tell him it is wrong to waste the gift of God; I tell him music is a great and a jealous mistress that demands all devotion—that the singer should have no country, no other love, no other mistress than his art!”
“H’m! And where does Lady Rawson come in?” asked Snell dryly, mindful of those letters.
Cacciola hesitated and glanced uneasily at Melikoff. Hitherto his manner had been engagingly frank; now it changed, became guarded, even furtive.
“It is so—so difficult,” he said slowly. “They are cousins—yes. They had not met for years; he thought she had perished, like so many—so many, until he found she was here in England, married to the great Sir Rawson.”
“When did he find that out? Before or after he came to you?”
“After—many weeks after he recover. I was glad—and sorry: glad that one whom he loved still lived, sorry——”
“Go on, sir—sorry because?”
“It is so difficult,” Cacciola murmured, with another appealing glance at Boris.
“Did Sir Robert know of their connection?”
Cacciola shook his head.