“None. She was an orphan at twelve years old, without a son. Castellani paid for her education, and traded upon her talent. He trained her to sing in his own operas, and in that light, fanciful music she was at her best; though it is her delusion now that she excelled in the grand style. I believe he absorbed the greater part of her earnings, until they quarrelled. Some time after his marriage there was a kind of reconciliation between them. She appeared in a new opera—his last and worst. Her voice was going, his talent had began to fail. It was the beginning of the end.”
“Has Signor Castellani’s son shown no interest in this poor creature’s fate?”
“No; the son lives in England, I believe, for the most part. I doubt if he knows anything about Maria.”
The singer had reverted to that familiar music. She sang the first part of an aria, a melody disguised with over-much fioritura, light, graceful, unmeaning.
“That is in his last opera,” she said, rising from the piano, with a more rational air. “The opera was almost a failure; but I was applauded to the echo. His genius had forsaken him. Follies, follies, falsehoods, crimes. He could not be true to any one or anything. He was as false to his wife as he had been false to me, and to his proud young English signorina; ah, well! who can doubt that he lied to her?”
She fell into a meditative mood, standing by the piano, touching a note now and then.
“Young and handsome and rich. Would she have accepted degradation with open eyes? No, no, no. He lied to her as he had lied to me. He was made up of lies.”
Her eyes grew troubled, and her lips worked convulsively. Again the doctor laid his strong broad hand upon her shoulder.
“Come, Maria,” he said in Italian; “enough for to-day. Madame has been pleased with your singing.”
“Yes, indeed, signora. You have a noble voice. I should be very glad if I could do anything to be of use to you; if I could contribute to your comfort in any way.”