Lottie did not say anything in reply. She felt vaguely that he was giving her praise, but she did not mind. Was that someone coming in below? but it was only Captain Despard returning in after matins. The Signor, always so quick, felt again the flutter in her, and knew what her expectation was.
“You were once very angry with me for making a—an application to you. You thought I meant to be disrespectful? Ah, no. I could not fail of respect to a lady, Miss Despard; but I saw in you what I see still more clearly now.”
“Signor!” said Lottie, rousing herself up to seize the opportunity, with a bewildered feeling that it was right to do it, that if she did not do it now, she never might; and, finally, that to do it might propitiate fate and make it unnecessary to be done—“Signor—let me tell you first. I went to the Abbey yesterday on purpose to see you, to say to you—— ah, here is some one coming to interrupt us.”
“Yes, there is some one coming to interrupt us,” cried the Signor almost bitterly; this time there could be no doubt who it was; “but first, one word before he comes. You were coming to tell me that you consented—that you would be my pupil?”
She could scarcely pay any attention to him, he saw. What a thing to think of, that a girl like this, a woman with genius, should let an empty-headed coxcomb come between her and all that was worth caring for, between her and Art! She gave him a confused, half-guilty look, which seemed like a confession of weakness, and nodded only in reply. Nodded! when a proposal was made to her such as the Muse might have made to her chief favourite, when the gates of the Palace of Art were being rolled open wide to admit her. In that moment, Lottie, all pre-occupied by the advent of a mere man of fashion, in music not more than a charlatan, in honour not much to brag of, gave her consent to the arrangement which was to fashion her life by—a nod. Heaven and earth! what a demonstration of female folly! Could the Signor be anything but vexed? He could hardly restrain his impatience, as Rollo came in, all eager and smiling, easy and cordial even to himself. The Signor, though he was as innocent of sentiment as old Pick, looked like nothing in the world so much as a scared, jealous, and despairing lover, watching, in spite of himself, the entrance of the conquering hero, for whom all the songs were sung and all the welcomes said.
“I might have known I should find Rossinetti here,” said Rollo, “as he is an earlier bird than I am. Where could we all flock this morning but here? You have been thanking Miss Despard for her divine singing last night. My life, what singing it was! I have never heard anything like it. Miss Despard, I have come to announce to you my conversion. I abjure opera as I abjure the pope. Henceforward Handel is my creed—so long as you are his interpreter,” he added, sinking his voice.
“Yes,” said the Signor. “Miss Despard will sing very well if she works; but we are far yet from the highest excellence of which such a voice as hers is capable. I will take my leave now. Perhaps you have a friend who would bring you to my house? that would be the best. No doubt I could come here; but if you will come to my house, my piano is a very good one, and that would be the best. Don’t think it is anything to be remarked; my pupils constantly do it. They bring a maid with them, or, if it is needful, I send for Mrs.——, for my housekeeper. My young ladies are most unflatteringly at their ease with me.”
“You are going to take lessons?” Rollo asked quickly. “I congratulate you, Rossinetti. My good fellow, you are a great genius, and I know very little, but I never was so envious of you before. All the same you know lessons are—teaching is—well, we must admit, not much more than a pretence in the present case. The habit of singing, that is all Miss Despard wants.”
“You must pardon me that I don’t agree with you,” the Signor said, somewhat stiffly. “Miss Despard does not want flattery from me. She will get plenty of that by and by; but she does want teaching, senza complimenti, and that she shall have if she will take it. It rests with her whether or not she will take it. If she does take it as I would have her do—then,” said the Signor, with a gleam in his eyes of suppressed enthusiasm, “then I flatter myself——”
Rollo was provoked. Though he was very sweet-tempered, he did not like to be crowed over in this way, and his pleasant hyperbole flattened out; besides, there is something in the presence of a young woman which makes men, ever so slightly pitted against each other, pugnacious. He laughed. “I see,” he said, “you won’t flatter Miss Despard, Rossinetti, but you flatter yourself.”