“How dare you tell me all this to my face?” said Lottie, transported with vivid anger. She would have taken it more quietly if she had not been weakened in spirit by the discouragement into which she had fallen before. Her fierce, sudden glance was even still unwillingly softened by the wetness of her eyes. But the Signor did not flinch. There was a kind of smile in his own as he met her look. He was not afraid of her. He looked, indeed, amiably, genially at Lottie—as she had never seen him look before—and as she turned round she became aware that he was not alone. Over his shoulder, with an alarmed, indignant aspect, which half amused while it consoled her, was another face with which Lottie was very well acquainted. It was the face of his favourite pupil, a young man who followed the Signor about like his shadow, always a few steps behind him, always in devout contemplation of him. But young Purcell was not of this mind to-day; he was looking at his beloved master with a mixture of rage and pathos very droll in their combination. Lottie was easily moved, and almost before the words of defiance had left her lips a laugh forced itself after them. She had to turn round again to conceal the conflict of sudden mirth in her face.
“Would you rather I said it to others than to you? No, because that would do you no good——”
“And do you really think that I—I——” Why should she laugh? Young Purcell’s face brightened slightly, but took a still more curious look of bewildered inquiry. As for the Signor, he thought she had become hysterical, which he believed was a common weakness with womankind in general, and he was alarmed.
“I beg you a thousand pardons if I have seemed rude,” he said. “All that I wanted was to begin the conversation; for I have—a little proposal to make.”
“Do you call that beginning a conversation to tell me I am quite ignorant, and cannot sing, and waste my voice?” said Lottie, recovering her indignation. “It is not a very civil way.”
“Miss Despard, I think you will miss the society’s singing, and I want to tell you it was not good for you. These people were dazzled by your voice,” said the organist, with unintentional confusion of metaphor, “and they made use of it. All these fine people, they make use of us, and often forget to say ‘thank you.’ I was sorry that you should suffer, too; so was Purcell; he knows what it is—a little. And you have had no teaching, you have not had a thorough professional training as he has——”
Lottie turned upon him with flashing eyes; and this time she did not laugh at the young man who, over the Signor’s shoulder, followed every movement of hers with such eager attention. His look of wonder and fear was not less comic than the other changes which had come over his countenance, but she took no notice of it. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, “by professional training. What do I want with professional training? What has Mr. Purcell to do with it? What do you mean, or how should I suffer? If they thank me, or if they don’t thank me, what is that to me?”
The Signor cast a glance round at young Purcell, who answered with a look of despair. “If you would but confide in us, we thought we could help you. Indeed, Miss Despard, it is no presumption on Purcell’s part, only a fellow-feeling——”
“Only a feeling—of respect!” This Purcell timidly gasped out, with alarm painted on every feature. Lottie, turning her back to the wall and confronting the two musicians, solemnly made them a very awful curtsey. It was an art she had learned (though the teacher was unaware of the fact) from Lady Caroline; and therefore it was of the very finest and most imposing kind.
“The puzzle is,” she said grandly, in a voice not unlike Lady Caroline’s, “what the link between us may be.”