“So! Bliss says a nice word occasionally and you like Sam Sparling—one of God’s own, Thurley—now he believes in Santa Claus. And you think Collin Patmore’s pictures superb? Wait until you see his house—Parva Sed Apta he has named it—and his garden! There is a fierce rivalry between Collin’s garden and Caleb’s and likewise their houses. Collin dubs his a château and I think Caleb claims his is a really true lodge! Funny boys! We’ll go up there in the summer and see for ourselves. Oh, yes, Thurley, tell me about Miss Clergy! I want to ask her if I may take you abroad this summer; three months across would do wonders for you. Bliss mentioned it before I went away. I want to see your eyes the first time you gaze at the Alhambra in the moonlight. We’ll give Italy half our time, a few weeks in Paris and six days in London. You’ll return not knowing yourself.”
“But the money? When, oh, when can I earn?” Thurley asked in distress.
“Don’t bother about money; just let me tell you what to pack and what to leave behind. Collin goes to sketch near Barcelona and we may take the same steamer over—wouldn’t that be a lark? Collin is the nicest courier I know, besides being the greatest portrait painter. I suppose he will give his next season’s subjects Spanish coloring and a red rose just tumbling off their left ear à la Carmen. One year he did Russia and I vow every western society woman he painted had the mysterious air of stilettos concealed in fans and poisoned cigarettes that Moscow alone can impart. He’ll run out of countries by and by, as France, Italy and England are old stories.”
“Can’t he paint people just as they are?”
“That’s the trouble. He would if he was not careful to have a supply of ‘atmosphere’ to shoot into muddy complexions and wriggling noses and to blur softly over deep-seated moles and other excess facial baggage. I am the only woman he ever painted without thought for future commissions.”
“Did he ever paint Mr. Hobart?” she wondered if she betrayed a blush.
“Haven’t you seen? But, then, you’ve never been at Parva Sed Apta. It was Bliss’s portrait that gave Collin his sudden rise. When you look at it, you will understand.” Ernestine fell to telling of Sam Sparling’s early stage days and her own début when she actually had worn white net with pearls, following by a dissertation on Polly’s angelic stubbornness and hopelessness and on how she planned to snub Caleb if he wrote a sequel to “Victorious Victoria” and advice about the attitude Thurley had best take towards her future associates at the opera house.
“Won’t we be terribly intimate?” she asked in surprise.
“Dear, no! Oh, you’ll have pictures taken together in loving attitudes, go to parties and all that—send each other flowers at proper times. But you’ll never be like the ‘family’ towards each other and, when you are older, you will realize the singular honor it has been to become one of the family so readily. You may loathe the tenor who sings Romeo to your Juliet and the woman who is leading contralto may be a deadly enemy—but that matters nothing. You sing your rôle and leave it and your art personality behind in your dressing-room. You will find that the others also have their own affairs, interests and opinions. They are not keen for the advent of a new, charming diva of whom they are certain to be jealous and angry of success so swiftly, easily achieved. You are a musical phenomenon, Thurley, and, as there are not many in any one generation, you must be guided accordingly.”
“Please tell me how the ‘family’ started.” Thurley had not yet reached the stage where talking of herself and her accomplishments was of keen interest.