“I didn’t like to see you so civil to Signora Vivanti. It is all very well for dowagers and fussy matrons to take notice of a public singer, but it is a new departure for you.”
“I could hardly help myself. She sang so delightfully, and I was pleased with her, and then Mr. Sefton introduced her to me. What could I do but praise her, when I really admired her?”
“No, you were blameless. It was Sefton’s fault. He had no right to introduce her to you.”
“But is she not respectable?”
“I cannot answer for her respectability. I know nothing of what kind of life she has led since she made her début. She wears diamonds, and that is not a good sign.”
“She does not look like a disreputable person,” said Eve, very thoughtfully. “There is something frank and simple about her. That boy must be hers, he is so like her. Do you know if she was ever married—if the boy’s father was her husband?”
“I know very little about her, as I told you to-day; but I should say not.”
“Poor thing! I am very sorry for her.”
“Don’t waste your pity upon her. She seems perfectly happy. A peasant girl, reared upon polenta, does not consider these things so tragically as they are considered in Mayfair.”
“How scornfully you speak of her. I am sure she is a good girl at heart. She remembered seeing me in the boat to-day, and she asked me if I was your wife. She repeated my name curiously, as if she had never heard it before. Did not she know your name when you met her in Verona, or wherever it was?”