"No, not now."

"I must wait for that, must I? We must see if we can soften the General's obdurate heart, my dear. But you are not unhappy now?"

To his surprise, the shadow rose again in her beautiful eyes, the lips fell into their old mournful lines.

"I don't know," she said sadly. "I ought not to be; but after all perhaps this does not make things any better. Oh, I wish I could forget what I know--what I have heard!"

"It is about Flossy?" said Hubert, in a whisper.

She hid her face, upon his shoulder without a word.

"My poor child, I am half inclined to think that I can guess. I know that Flossy's life has not been all that it should have been. No, don't tell me--I will not ask you again unless you wish to confide in me."

"You said you did not know."

"I do not know--exactly; but I suspect; and, my dear Enid, we can do nothing. Make your mind easy on that point. Our highest duty now is to hold our tongues."

He thought, naturally enough, that she had heard of Florence's secret interviews with Sydney Vane--so much, he was certain, even the village-people knew--that in her visits to the cottages she had heard some story of this kind, and had been distressed--that was all.

"Do you really think so?" said Enid, clinging to him. She was only too thankful to get rid of the responsibility of judging for herself. "You do not think that uncle Richard ought to know?"

"My dear girl, what an idea! Certainly not! Do you want to break the old man's heart?"

"He is very fond of little Dick," murmured Enid, rather to herself than to him.

He did not lay hold of the clue that her words might have given him if he had attended to them more closely. He went on encouragingly--

"And of his wife too. No, dear, we cannot wreck his happiness by scruples of that kind. We must endure our knowledge--or our suspicions--in silence. Besides, what you have heard may not be true."

"Do you think so, Hubert?" she said wistfully.

"It is better surely to take a charitable view, is it not?"

"Oh, thank you! That is just what I wanted!" she said, a new brightness stealing into her eyes and cheeks. "Yes, I am sure that I must have been hard and uncharitable. I will try to think better things. And, oh, Hubert, you have really made me happy now!"

"That is what I wanted," said Hubert, with a sigh, as for the first time he pressed his lips to hers. "Your happiness, Enid, is all that I wish to secure."

He was in earnest; and it did not seem hard to him that in trying to secure her happiness he had perhaps lost his own.

CHAPTER XXII.

"A Grand Morning Concert will be given on Thursday, June 25th, at Ebury's Rooms, by the pupils of Madame della Scala. By kind permission of Mr. Mapleson, the following _artistes_ will appear." Then followed a list of well known operatic vocalists, also Miss This, That, and the other--"and Miss Cynthia West." The last half-dozen names were not as yet famous.

The above intimation, together with much detail concerning time, place, and performers, was printed on a very large gilt-edged card; and two such cards, enclosed in a thick square envelope, lay upon Hubert Lepel's breakfast-table some months after the New Year's holiday which he had spent at Beechfield Hall.

He looked at them with an amused, interested smile, and read the words more than once--then, with equal interest, perused a programme of the concert, which had also been enclosed.

"So it is to-day, is it?" he said to himself, as he finished his cup of coffee. "She is late in sending me a ticket; I shall scarcely be able to nail any of the critics for her now. I would have got Gurney to write her a notice if I had known earlier. Probably that is the very reason why she did not let me know--independent young woman that she is! I'll go and see what I can do for her even at the eleventh hour. She shall have a good big bouquet for her _debut_, at any rate!"

He sallied forth, making his way to his club, where he found occasion to remark to more than one of his friends that Madame della Scala's concert would be worth going to, and that a young lady who had formerly been known in the theatrical world--Miss Cynthia West--would make her _debut_ as a public singer that afternoon. Meeting Marcus Gurney, the well-known musical critic of an influential paper, soon afterwards, he pressed upon him his spare ticket for the concert, and gave him to understand that it would be a really good-natured thing if he could turn in at Ebury's Rooms between three and four, and write something for the _Scourge_ that would not injure that very promising _debutante_, Miss West. Marcus Gurney laughed and consented, and Hubert went off well pleased; he had at least stopped the mouth of the bitterest critic in London, he reflected--for, though Gurney was personally one of the most amiable of men, he could be very virulent in print. Then he went off to Covent Garden, and selected two of the loveliest bouquets he could find--one, of course, for Cynthia, and one for her teacher, Madame della Scala. For Hubert was wise in his generation.

He had seen very little of Cynthia West during the last few months, and had not heard her sing at all. Shortly after his second interview with her, he had sent her to Italy for the winter, so that she might have a course of lessons from the most celebrated teacher in Milan. He was gratified to hear that there had been at least nothing to unlearn. Old Lalli had done his work very thoroughly; he had trained her voice as only a skilled musician could have done; and, on hearing who had been her teacher, the great Italian _maestro_ had thrown up his hands and asked her why she came to him.

"You will have no need of me," he had said to her. "Lalli--did you not know?--he was once our _primo tenore_ in opera! He would have been great--ah, great--if he had not lost his voice in an expedition to your terrible England! So he stayed there and played the violon, did he? And he taught you to sing with your mouth round and close like that--my own method! La, la, la, la! We shall see you at La Scala before we have done!"

But, when the spring came, and he himself was about to fulfil an engagement in Berlin, he handed Cynthia over to the care of Madame della Scala, who was then going to England, and advised her to sing in public--even to take a professional engagement--if she had the chance, and, if not, to spend another winter under his tuition in Milan. So Cynthia came back to London in May, and lived with Madame della Scala, and was heard by nobody until the day of the annual semi-private concert, which Madame della Scala loved to give for the benefit of herself and her best pupils.

Hubert reached the rooms at three precisely. He might easily have sent in his name and obtained a little chat with Cynthia beforehand in the artists' room; but he did not care to do that. He wanted to see her first; he was curious to know whether her new experiences had taken effect upon her, and how she would bear herself before her judges. He had seen her once only since her return from Italy, and then but for a few minutes in the society of other people. He could not tell whether she was changed or not; and he was curious to know.

She had written to him from Italy several times--letters like herself, vivacious, sparkling, full of spirit and humor. He knew her very well from these letters, and he was inclined to wish that he knew her better.

He would see how she looked before she knew that he was present; it would be amusing to note whether she found him out or not.

Thus he argued to himself; and then, with perverse want of logic, after saying that he did not wish her to know that he was there, he sent his bouquets to the green-room for teacher and pupil alike, and compromised matters by attaching his card to Madame's bouquet only, and not to that which he sent to Cynthia West--a feeble compromise certainly, and entirely ineffectual.

He seated himself on a green-colored bench on the right-hand side of the room, and looked around him at the audience. It consisted largely of mothers and other relatives of the pupils, some of whom came from the most aristocratic houses in England--largely also of critics, and of musical persons with flowing hair and note-books. Hubert knew Madame della Scala's reputation; it was here that the _impresario_ on the watch for new talent always came--it was here that the career of more than one famous English singer had been successfully begun. It was of some importance therefore that Cynthia should sing her best and do her utmost to impress her audience.

Having looked about him and consulted his programme, Hubert glanced at the platform, and was aware that a little comedy was being enacted for the benefit of all persons present.

Madame della Scala was first led forward by a bevy of admiring pupils, Cynthia not being one, and made her bow to the audience with an air of gracious humility that was very effective indeed. She was a dark, thin little woman who had once been handsome, and was still striking in appearance. She had been an operatic singer in days gone by, and had taken up the profession of a teacher only when her vocal powers began to fail. In demi-toilette, with ribbons and medals adorning her square-cut bodice, long gloves on her hands, and a fan between her fingers, the little lady curtseyed, smiled, gesticulated, in a charmingly foreign way, which procured for her the warmest plaudits of the audience. One felt that, though she herself was not about to perform in person, she considered herself responsible for the efforts of her pupils, and made herself fascinating on their behalf.

A large screen was placed on one side of the platform, and a grand piano nearly filled the other side, leaving a central space for the performers. At first Hubert had wondered why the screen was there. Now he saw its use. Madame della Scala seated herself in a chair behind it, with her face to the singers--evidently under the delusion that her figure was completely hidden from the audience, and that she could, unseen, direct, stimulate, or reprove the singers by movement of head, hands, handkerchief, and fan. The manoeuvre would have been successful enough, but for the fact that the back of the platform was entirely filled with a sheet of looking-glass, and that in this mirror her gestures and facial contortions were all distinctly visible to the greater number of the listeners. Hubert found great satisfaction in watching the different expressions of her countenance; he told himself that Madame's face was the most interesting part of the performance. How sweetly she smiled at her favorite pupils from the shadow of the screen!

How she nodded her head and beat time with her fingers to the songs they sang! How, in moments of uncontrollable excitement, she waved her hands and swayed her body and gesticulated with her fan! It was a comedy in dumb show. And, as each girl-singer, after performing her part and curtseying to the audience, passed her teacher on the way to the artists' room, Madame seized her impulsively by both hands, and drew her down to impress a kiss of satisfaction on the performer's forehead. The woman's old charm as an actress, the Southern grace and excitability and warmth, were never more evident than when reflected in Madame's movements behind the screen that afternoon, and visible to the audience--did she know it after all?--only in a looking-glass.

The humor of the situation impressed Hubert, and made him glad that he had come. The whole scene had something foreign, something half theatrical about it. An English teacher of music would have effaced herself--would have shaken with nervousness and scowled at her pupils.

Madame had no idea of effacing herself at all. She was benignity, composure, affability incarnate. The girls were all her "dear angels,"

who were helping to make her concert a success. When, at a preconcerted signal in the middle of the afternoon, she was led forward by one of her most distinguished pupils, and presented by a group of adoring girls with a great basket of flowers, her whole face beamed with satisfaction, her medals and orders and brooches twinkled responsively as she curtseyed, waved her fan, spread out her lace and silken draperies, and slipped gracefully back into the screen's obscurity once more. Only one little _contretemps_ occurred to mar the harmony of the scene. Just as Madame had returned to her seat, the screen, displaced a little by her movement, fell over, dragging down flower-pots and ferns, and almost upsetting Madame herself. The bevy of girls rushed to pick her up, gentlemen and attendants came to the rescue, and in a few moments Madame was reinstated, a little shaken and flustered, but amiable as ever, the screen was replaced more securely, and the concert proceeded with decorum.

But where all this time was Cynthia? She had not joined the cluster of girls who presented the flowers to Madame, or run to pick her up when the screen fell down. Madame was reserving Cynthia for a great effect.

She did not appear until nearly the end of the first part of the concert, when she came on to sing an Italian aria.

"More beautiful than ever!" was Hubert's first reflection. "More beautiful than I remembered her! Is she nervous? No, I think not. Her face will take the town if her voice does not." And then he settled himself to listen. He was far more nervous than Cynthia herself or than Madame della Scala, who was keeping time to the music with her fan behind the screen.

Cynthia's beauty, of an unusually striking order, was heightened by an excitement which lent new color to her cheeks, new fire to her eyes. She was dressed in very pale yellow--white had been rejected as not so becoming to her dark skin as a more decided tint--and she wore a cluster of scarlet flowers on her left shoulder. She looked like some brilliant tropical bird or butterfly--a thing of light and color, to whom sunlight was as essential as food. Hubert felt vain of his _protegee_ as he heard the little murmur of applause that greeted her appearance.

But the applause that followed her singing swamped every other manifestation of approval. Cynthia surpassed herself. Her voice and her method of singing were infinitely improved; the sweet high notes were sweeter than ever, and were full of an exquisite thrill of feeling which struck Hubert as something new in her musical development. There was no doubt about her success. No other singer had roused the audience to such a pitch of excitement and admiration.

Hubert glanced at Madame della Scala. She was sitting with her hands folded, a placid smile of achievement upon her lips; she had produced all the impression that she wished to make, and for once was completely satisfied. Hubert read it in her look.

Cynthia was curtseying to the audience, when, for the first time, Hubert caught her eye--or rather it was for the first time only that she allowed him to see that she observed him; as a matter of fact, she had been conscious of his presence ever since she entered the concert-room.

She flashed a quick smile at him, bowed openly in his direction, and--as if by accident--touched the belt of her dress. He was quick enough to see what she meant; some flowers from his bouquet were fastened at her waist. He half rose from his seat, involuntarily, and almost as if he wanted to join her on the platform, then sat down again, vexed at his own movement, and blushing like a schoolboy. He did not know what had come to him, he told himself; for a moment he had been quite embarrassed and overwhelmed by this girl's bright glance and smile. She was certainly very handsome; and it was embarrassing--yes, it was decidedly a little embarrassing--to be recognised by her so publicly at the very moment of her first success.

"Know her?" said a voice at his shoulder--it was the voice of a critic.

"Why, she's first-rate! Isn't she the girl that used to play small parts at the Frivolity? Who discovered that she had a voice?"