He played a few chords, and breathed out the "Salve, dimora casta e pura," from _Faust_, high and soft and clear. There is a point in that song, near to the end, where the words say, "Reveal to me the maiden,"

and where the music goes away to the highest note that anyone can possibly sing. It always appears quite easy for Nino, and he does not squeak like a dying pig as all the other tenors do on that note. He was looking up as he sang it, wondering whether it would have any effect. Apparently Hedwig lost her head completely, for she gently opened the cas.e.m.e.nt and looked out at the moonlight opposite, over the carved stone mullions of her window. The song ended, he hesitated whether to go or to sing again. She was evidently looking towards him; but he was in the light, for the moon had risen higher, and she, on the other side of the street, was in the dark.

"Signorina!" he called softly. No answer. "Signorina!" he said again, coming across the empty street and standing under the window, which might have been thirty feet from the ground.

"Hush!" came a whisper from above.

"I thank you with all my soul for listening to me," he said, in a low voice. "I am innocent of that of which you suspect me. I love you, ah, I love you!" But at this she left the window very quickly. She did not close it, however, and Nino stood long, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the white face that had been there. He sighed, and, striking a chord, sang out boldly the old air from the _Trovatore_, "Ah, che la morte ognora e tarda nel venir." Every blind fiddler in the streets plays it, though he would be sufficiently scared if death came any the quicker for his fiddling. But old and worn as it is it has a strain of pa.s.sion in it, and Nino threw more fire and voice into the ring of it than ever did famous old Boccarde, when he sang it at the first performance of the opera, thirty and odd years ago. As he played the chords after the first strophe, the voice from above whispered again:

"Hush! for Heaven's sake!" Just that, and something fell at his feet, with a soft little padded sound on the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and found a single rose; and at that instant the window closed sharply. Therefore he kissed the rose and hid it, and presently he strode down the street, finishing his song as he went, but only humming it, for the joy had taken his voice away. I heard him let himself in and go to bed, and he told me about it in the morning. That is how I know.

Since the day after the _debut_ Nino had not seen the baroness. He did not speak of her, and I am sure he wished she were at the very bottom of the Tiber. But on the morning after the serenade he received a note from her, which was so full of protestations of friendship and so delicately couched that he looked grave, and reflected that it was his duty to be courteous, and to answer such a call as that. She begged him earnestly to come at one o'clock; she was suffering from headache, she said, and was very weak. Had Nino loved Hedwig a whit the less he would not have gone. But he felt himself strong enough to face anything and everything, and therefore he determined to go.

He found her, indeed, with the manner of a person who is ill, but not with the appearance. She was lying on a huge couch, pushed to the fireside, and there were furs about her. A striped scarf of rich Eastern silk was round her throat, and she held in her hand a new novel, of which she carelessly cut the pages with a broad-hafted Persian knife. But there was colour in her dark cheek, and a sort of angry fire in her eyes. Nino thought the clean steel in her hand looked as though it might be used for something besides cutting leaves, if the fancy took her.

"So at last you have honoured me with a visit, signore," she said, not desisting from her occupation. Nino came to her, and she put out her hand. He touched it, but could not bear to hold it, for it burned him.

"You used to honour my hand differently from that," she half whispered. Nino sat himself down a little way from her, blushing slightly. It was not at what she had said, but at the thought that he should ever have kissed her fingers.

"Signora," he replied, "there are customs, chivalrous and gentle in themselves, and worthy for all men to practise. But from the moment a custom begins to mean what it should not, it ought to be abandoned.

You will forgive me if I no longer kiss your hand."

"How cold you are!--how formal! What should it mean?"

"It is better to say too little than too much," he answered.

"Bah!" she cried, with a bitter little laugh. "Words are silver, but silence--is very often nothing but silver-plated bra.s.s. Put a little more wood on the fire; you make me cold." Nino obeyed.

"How literal you are!" said the baroness petulantly. "There is fire enough on the hearth."

"Apparently, signora, you are pleased to be enigmatical," said Nino.

"I will be pleased to be anything I please," she answered, and looked at him rather fiercely. "I wanted you to drive away my headache, and you only make it worse."

"I am sorry, signora. I will leave you at once. Permit me to wish you a very good-morning." He took his hat and went towards the door.

Before he reached the heavy curtain, she was at his side with a rush like a falcon on the wing, her eyes burning darkly between anger and love.

"Nino!" She laid hold of his arm, and looked into his face.

"Signora," he protested coldly, and drew back.

"You will not leave me so?"

"As you wish, signora. I desire to oblige you."

"Oh, how cold you are!" she cried, leaving his arm, and sinking into a chair by the door, while he stood with his hand on the curtain. She hid her eyes. "Nino, Nino! You will break my heart!" she sobbed; and a tear, perhaps more of anger than of sorrow, burst through her fingers, and coursed down her cheek.

Few men can bear to see a woman shed tears. Nino's nature rose up in his throat, and bade him console her. But between him and her was a fair, bright image that forbade him to move hand or foot.

"Signora," he said, with all the calm he could command, "if I were conscious of having by word or deed of mine given you cause to speak thus, I would humbly implore your forgiveness. But my heart does not accuse me. I beg you to allow me to take leave of you. I will go away, and you shall have no further cause to think of me." He moved again, and lifted the curtain. But she was like a panther, so quick and beautiful. Ah, how I could have loved that woman! She held him, and would not let him go, her smooth fingers fastening round his wrists like springs.

"Please to let me go," he said, between his teeth, with rising anger.

"No! I will not let you!" she cried fiercely, tightening her grasp on him. Then the angry fire in her tearful eyes seemed suddenly to melt into a soft flame, and the colour came faster to her cheeks. "Ah, how can you let me so disgrace myself! how can you see me fallen so low as to use the strength of my hands, and yet have no pity? Nino, Nino, do not kill me!"

"Indeed, it would be the better for you if I should," he answered bitterly, but without attempting to free his wrists from the strong, soft grip.

"But you will," she murmured, pa.s.sionately. "You are killing me by leaving me. Can you not see it?" Her voice melted away in the tearful cadence. But Nino stood gazing at her as stonily as though he were the Sphinx. How could he have the heart? I cannot tell. Long she looked into his eyes, silently; but she might as well have tried to animate a piece of iron, so stern and hard he was. Suddenly, with a strong convulsive movement, she flung his hands from her.

"Go!" she cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Go to that wax doll you love, and see whether she will love you, or care whether you leave her or not! Go, go, go! Go to her!" She had sprung far back from him, and now pointed to the door, drawn to her full height and blazing in her wrath.

"I would advise you, madam, to speak with proper respect of any lady with whom you choose to couple my name." His lips opened and shut mechanically, and he trembled from head to foot.

"Respect!" She laughed wildly. "Respect for a mere child whom you happen to fancy! Respect, indeed, for anything you choose to do!

I--I--respect Hedwig von Lira? Ha! ha!" and she rested her hand on the table behind her, as she laughed.

"Be silent, madam," said Nino, and he moved a step nearer, and stood with folded arms.

"Ah! You would silence me now, would you? You would rather not hear me speak of your midnight serenades, and your sweet letters dropped from the window of her room at your feet?" But her rage overturned itself, and with a strange cry she fell into a deep chair, and wept bitterly, burying her face in her two hands. "Miserable woman that I am!" she sobbed, and her whole lithe body was convulsed.

"You are indeed," said Nino, and he turned once more to go. But as he turned, the servant threw back the curtain.

"The Signor Conte di Lira," he announced, in distinct tones. For a moment there was a dead silence, during which, in spite of his astonishment at the sudden appearance of the count, Nino had time to reflect that the baroness had caused him to be watched during the previous night. It might well be, and the mistake she made in supposing the thing Hedwig had dropped to be a letter told him that her spy had not ventured very near.

The tall count came forward under the raised curtains, limping and helping himself with his stick. His face was as gray and wooden as ever, but his moustaches had an irritated, crimped look that Nino did not like. The count barely nodded to the young man as he stood aside to let the old gentleman pa.s.s; his eyes turned mechanically to where the baroness sat. She was a woman who had no need to simulate pa.s.sion in any shape, and it must have cost her a terrible effort to control the paroxysm of anger and shame and grief that had overcome her. There was something unnatural and terrifying in her sudden calm, as she forced herself to rise and greet her visitor.

"I fear I come out of season," he said, apologetically, as he bent over her hand.

"On the contrary," she answered; "but forgive me if I speak one word to Professor Cardegna." She went to where Nino was standing.

"Go into that room," she said, in a very low voice, glancing towards a curtained door opposite the windows, "and wait till he goes. You may listen if you choose." She spoke authoritatively.

"I will not," answered Nino, in a determined whisper.

"You will not?" Her eyes flashed again. He shook his head.

"Count von Lira," she said aloud, turning to him, "do you know this young man?" She spoke in Italian, and Von Lira answered in the same language; but as what he said was not exactly humorous, I will spare you the strange construction of his sentences.

"Perfectly," he answered. "It is precisely concerning this young man that I desire to speak with you." The count remained standing because the baroness had not told him to be seated.

"That is fortunate," replied the baroness, "for I wish to inform you that he is a villain, a wretch, a miserable fellow!" Her anger was rising again, but she struggled to control it. When Nino realised what she said he came forward and stood near the count, facing the baroness, his arms folded on his breast, as though to challenge accusation. The count raised his eyebrows.

"I am aware that he concealed his real profession so long as he gave my daughter lessons. That, however, has been satisfactorily explained, though I regret it. Pray inform me why you designate him as a villain." Nino felt a thrill of sympathy for this man whom he had so long deceived.

"This man, sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer, who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in language, has the audacity to love your daughter. For the sake of pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped letters to him,--love-letters, do you understand? And now,"--her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,--"and now he has the effrontery to come to me--to me--to me of all women--and to confess his abominable pa.s.sion for that pure angel, imploring me to a.s.sist him in bringing destruction upon her and you.

Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is h.e.l.lish!" She pressed her hands to her temples as she stood, and glared at the two men. The count was a strong man, easily petulant, but hard to move to real anger. Though his face was white and his right hand clutched his crutch-stick, he still kept the mastery of himself.

"Is what you tell me true, madam?" he asked in a strange voice.

"Before G.o.d, it is true!" she cried, desperately.