“Ah, I thought you had forgotten me again,” said Lisa. “But you are here at last; and now ask the master if he is pleased with me.”
“I am more than pleased,” began Zinco, bowing and smiling at Vansittart as one who would fain have prostrated himself at the feet of so exalted a patron.
“Stay,” cried Lisa. “You shall not talk of me before my face. I will go and make the tea—and then Zinco will tell you the truth, Si’or mio, the very truth about me. He will not be obliged to praise.”
She dashed out of the room, as if blown out on a strong wind, so impetuous were her movements. La Zia began to clear a table for tea, a table heaped with sheets of music and play-books. Fiordelisa had been learning English out of Gilbert’s librettos, which were harder work for her than Metastasio for an English student.
“Well, Signor Zinco, what do you think of your pupil?” asked Vansittart.
“Sir, she is of a marvellous natural. She has an enormous talent, and with that talent an enormous energy. She is destined to a prodigious success upon the English scene.”
“I am delighted to hear it.”
“She has all the qualities which succeed with your English people—a fine voice, a fine person, and—that that may not displease you—a vulgarity which will command applause. Were I more diplomatist I should say genius—where I say vulgarity—but this divine creature is adorably vulgar. She has no nerves. I say to her sing, and she sings. ‘Attack me the A sharp,’ and she attacks, and the note rings out like a bell. She is without nerves, and she is without self-consciousness, and she has the courage of a lion. She has worked as no pupil of mine ever worked before. She is mastering your difficult language in as many months as it cost me years. She has laboured at the theory of music, and though she is in most things of a surprising ignorance, she has made no mean progress in that difficult science. She has worked as Garcia’s gifted daughter worked; and were this age worthy of a second Malibran, she has in her the stuff to make a Malibran.”
The fat little maestro stopped for breath, not for words. He stood mopping his forehead and smiling at Vansittart, who was inclined to believe in his sincerity, for that roulade he had heard at the door just now displayed a voice of brilliant quality.
“You are enthusiastic, Signor Zinco,” he said quietly. “And pray when you have trained this fine voice to the uttermost what do you intend to do with it?”