"I will lead the lady on, and that is quite enough."
When the public saw that the singer was not the celebrated X. they were for a moment confounded, but the tenor was the guaranty, he could not be mistaken. The duet began; never had the tenor sang so well.
The unknown was a thorough artist. She looked like a statue of Passion, as she stood at the piano, and her triumph was so great that it was the talk of Paris for three days. But the strangest part of all was, that after receiving this ovation she disappeared. The reporters could not find her. Finally one of them, more indefatigable than the others, discovered her in a small hôtel on the Champs Elysées. Her name was inscribed as Jane Zeld, from Russia, and she was accompanied by an intendant named Maslenes.
The reporter, armed with this information, proceeded to concoct a legend. She belonged, he said, to a great family in Russia. She had left her home "for reasons which the Journal was not at liberty to reveal."
For a fortnight, managers and directors were on the qui vive, but as a poetical personage of importance took this time to commit suicide, the name of Jane Zeld was gradually forgotten.
When two days before his fête, Goutran received a perfumed note in which Jane offered to sing for him, he was charmed.
The lady entered the room, followed at some little distance by Esperance, who had conquered his timidity and come. His father had bidden him "live," and the young man felt that he was in a measure obeying his order when he drove to Goutran's studio, where he arrived just in time to assist the fair stranger from her carriage.
The horizon of Paris is so vast that there is always room for a new star. And Jane Zeld, even if she had not shrouded herself in so much mystery, and without a voice, would have been conspicuous for her beauty, which was of aristocratic delicacy. Her lips were like pomegranate flowers in their rich red. Her bust was discreetly vailed, her arms were beautifully rounded, firm and white, and terminated in exquisite hands.
Goutran had begged Esperance to come to his fête. The Vicomte did so, and Goutran seemed to forget his presence. Only a few curious glances were turned upon him. All eyes were watching Jane who, too, seemed to forget the person who had so gallantly assisted her from her carriage. Every one was eager for an introduction to this queen of the evening, and when she went to the piano a great hush fell upon the room. She sang melodies, Slavonic airs, that had never before been heard in Paris, and then an aria of a great composer, and when she concluded there was immense applause.
"Do you know," said a voice, in the ear of the host, "that you are a most eccentric person!"