The success of the first part of the concert was assured. Before the second part began a strange young lady went to the celebrated singer and offered to take the part of Madame X——, and sing several songs.
"What is your name, mademoiselle?" asked Roger.
"My name will be unknown to you, as I have only been two days in Paris," replied the stranger, laughing. "I am Jane Zild. Perhaps you will allow me to sing something to you first. Will the beggar aria from the 'Prophet' be agreeable to you?"
Without waiting for answer Jane Zild went to the piano.
The accompanist struck the first notes of the well-known aria, and hardly had Roger heard the magnificent contralto of the stranger than he enthusiastically exclaimed:
"Thank God, Madame X—— is sick!"
"That is treason!" scolded the young lady; but the public seemed to be of the same opinion as Roger, and rewarded the young songstress, when she had finished, with round after round of applause. Encouraged by the applause, she sang the aria from "Orpheus"—"Ah, I have lost her, all my happiness is gone." This set the audience wild.
For two days nothing else was talked of in Paris but the young songstress. Jane Zild lived in a house in the Champs-Elysées. She had arrived, as she said, but a few days before from Russia, in company with an elderly man, who was looked upon as her steward, and whom she called Melosan.
The reporters had seized upon these meagre details and magnified them. According to them, Jane Zild was the daughter of a rich Russian nobleman. An unconquerable yearning for the stage brought her in conflict with her father, and, burdened with his curse, she ran away from home. If in spite of this she did not go on the stage it was not the reporters' fault.
The young lady was very capricious, and had refused the most tempting offers from the management of the Opera. She also refused to sing for the Emperor at Compiegne, and it therefore caused a sensation among Gontram's guests when Jane Zild suddenly appeared.