‘Upon my word, Mr. Clissold, I don’t know why I should be ashamed of the matter,’ she said, smiling. ‘It is a free country, and we are always taught that we may do as we like with our own. Now nothing can be more one’s own property than one’s name.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘When I came back to England, after a lengthened sojourn in romantic Italy—the dream of my life through many a year of toil,—I found that I was still too young, and of far too energetic a temperament to settle down to idleness and retirement. I am speaking now of fifteen years ago. In Italy I had cultivated and improved my powers as an instrumentalist, and I had made myself mistress of the mellifluous language to which a Dante and a Tasso have lent renown. In Italy I had been known as the Signora Bâlo. Gradually I had fallen into the way of writing my name as my Italian friends preferred to write it; and ultimately, when I established myself in this modest dwelling, and issued my circulars, I preferred to appeal to a patrician and fashionable public under the Italianized name of Bâlo, and with the prefix Madame.’
‘Your explanation is perfect, Madame,’ replied Maurice, ‘and I thank you sincerely for your candour. And now may I inquire if you remember among your pupils at Seacomb a young lady of the name of Trevanard?’
Madame Bâlo looked agitated.
‘Remember Muriel Trevanard!’ she exclaimed. ‘I do indeed remember her. She was my favourite pupil, a lovely girl, full of talent—a charming creature.’
‘Have you any idea of her fate in after life?’
‘No,’ returned the schoolmistress, with a troubled look. ‘It ought to have been brilliant, but I fear it was a blighted life.’
‘It was indeed,’ said Maurice, and then, as briefly as he could, told Madame Bâlo the story of her pupil’s after life.
Madame Bâlo heard him with undisguised agitation. A little cry of horrified surprise broke from her more than once during his narrative.