"Who is his master?" asked Hedwig, suddenly.

"I cannot remember the name just now," said Nino, looking away. "But I will find out, if you wish." He was afraid of putting De Pretis to any inconvenience by saying that the young singer was his pupil.

"However," he continued, "you will hear him sing as often as you please, after he makes his _debut_ next month." He sighed when he thought that it would all so soon be over. For how could he disguise himself any longer, when he should be singing in public every night?

But Hedwig clapped her hands.

"So soon?" she cried. "Then there will be an end of the mystery."

"Yes," said Nino, gravely "there will be an end of the mystery."

"At least you can tell me his name, now that we shall all know it."

"Oh, his name--his name is Cardegna, like mine. He is my cousin, you know." And they went on with the lesson. But something of the kind occurred almost every time he came, so that he felt quite sure that, however indifferent he might be in her eyes, the singer, the Nino of whom she knew nothing, interested her deeply.

Meanwhile he was obliged to go very often to the baroness' scented boudoir, which smelled of incense and other Eastern perfumes, whenever it did not smell of cigarettes; and there he sang little songs, and submitted patiently to her demands for more and more music. She would sit by the piano and watch him as he sang, wondering whether he were handsome or ugly, with his square face and broad throat and the black circles round his eyes. He had a fascination for her, as being something utterly new to her.

One day she stood and looked over the music as he sang, almost touching him, and his hair was so curly and soft to look at that she was seized with a desire to stroke it, as Mariuccia strokes the old gray cat for hours together. The action was quite involuntary, and her fingers rested only a moment on his head.

"It is so curly," she said, half playfully, half apologetically. But Nino started as though he had been stung, and his dark face grew pale.

A girl could not have seemed more hurt at a strange man's touch.

"Signora!" he cried, springing to his feet. The baroness, who is as dark as he, blushed almost red, partly because she was angry, and partly because she was ashamed.

"What a boy you are!" she said, carelessly enough, and turned away to the window, pushing back one heavy curtain with her delicate hand, as if she would look out.

"Pardon me, signora, I am not a boy," said Nino, speaking to the back of her head as he stood behind her. "It is time we understood each other better. I love like a man and I hate like a man. I love someone very, much."

"Fortunate contessina!" laughed the baroness, mockingly, without turning round.

"It does not concern you, signora, to know whom I love, nor, if you know, to speak of her. I ask you a simple question. If you loved a man with your whole soul and heart, would you allow another man to stand beside you and stroke your hair, and say it was curly?" The baroness burst out laughing. "Do not laugh," he continued. "Remember that I am in your power only so long as it pleases me to submit to you. Do not abuse your advantage, or I will be capable of creating for myself situations quite as satisfactory as that of Italian master to the Signorina di Lira."

"What do you mean?" she asked, turning suddenly upon him. "I suppose you would tell me that you will make advantages for yourself which you will abuse against me? What do you mean?"

"I do not mean that. I mean only that I may not wish to give lessons to the contessina much longer." By this time the baroness had recovered her equanimity; and as she would have been sorry to lose Nino, who was a source of infinite pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt to her, she decided to pacify him instead of teasing him any more.

"Is it not very foolish for us to quarrel about your curly hair?" said she. "We have been such good friends always." It might have been three weeks, her "always."

"I think it is," answered Nino, gravely. "But do not stroke my hair again, Signora Baronessa, or I shall be angry." He was quite serious, if you believe it, though he was only twenty. He forthwith sat down to the piano again and sang on. The baroness sat very silent and scarcely looked at him; but she held her hands clasped on her knee, and seemed to be thinking. After a time Nino stopped singing and sat silent also, absently turning over the sheets of music. It was warm in the room, and the sounds from the street were m.u.f.fled and far away.

"Signor Nino," said the lady at last, in a different voice, "I am married."

"Yes, signora," he replied, wondering what would come next.

"It would be very foolish of me to care for you."

"It would also be very wicked," he said, calmly; for he is well grounded in religion. The baroness stared at him in some surprise, but seeing he was perfectly serious, she went on.

"Precisely, as you say, very wicked. That being the case, I have decided not to care for you any more--I mean not to care for you at all. I have made up my mind to be your friend."

"I am much obliged to your ladyship," he answered, without moving a muscle. For you see, he did not believe her.

"Now tell me, then, Signor Nino, are you in earnest in what you are doing? Do you really set your heart on doing this thing?"

"What?" asked Nino, annoyed at the persistence of the woman.

"Why need you be afraid to understand me? Can you not forgive me? Can you not believe in me that I will be your friend? I have always dreamed of being the friend of a great artist. Let me be yours, and believe me, the thing you have in your heart shall be done."

"I would like to hope so," he said. But he smiled incredulously. "I can only say that if you can accomplish what it is in my heart to do, I will go through fire and water at your bidding; and if you are not mocking me, I am very grateful for the offer. But if you please, signora, we will not speak any more of this at present. I may be a great artist some day. Sometimes I feel sure that I shall. But now I am simply Giovanni Cardegna, teacher of literature; and the highest favour you can confer on me is not to deprive me of my means of support by revealing to the Conte di Lira my other occupation. I may fail hopelessly at the outset of my artistic career, and in that case I shall certainly remain a teacher of language."

"Very well," said the baroness, in a subdued voice; for, in spite of her will and wilfulness, this square-faced boy of mine was more than a match for her. "Very well, you will believe me another day, and now I will ask you to go, for I am tired."

I cannot be interrupted by your silly questions about the exact way in which things happened. I must tell this story in my own way or not at all; and I am sacrificing a great deal to your taste in cutting out all the little things that I really most enjoy telling. Whether you are astonished at the conduct of the baroness, after a three weeks'

acquaintance, or not, I care not a fig. It is just the way it happened, and I daresay she was really madly in love with Nino. If I had been Nino I should have been in love with her. But I would like you to admire my boy's audacity, and to review the situation, before I go on to speak of that important event in his life, his first appearance on the boards of the opera. At the time of his _debut_ he was still disguised as a teacher of Italian to the young contessina.

She thought him interesting and intelligent, but that was all. Her thoughts were entirely, though secretly, engrossed by the mysterious singer whom she had heard twice but had not seen as far as she knew.

Nino, on the other hand, loved her to desperation, and would have acted like a madman had he been deprived of his privilege of speaking to her three times a week. He loved her with the same earnest determination to win her that he had shown for years in the study of his art, and with all the rest of his nature besides, which is saying much--not to mention his soul, of which he thinks a great deal more than I do.

Besides this, the baroness had apparently fallen in love with him, had made him her intimate, and flattered him in a way to turn his head.

Then she seemed to have thought better of her pa.s.sion, and had promised him her friendship,--a promise which he himself considered of no importance whatever. As for the old Conte de Lira, he read the German newspapers, and cared for none of these things. De Pretis took an extra pinch of his good snuff, when he thought that his liberal ideas might yet be realised, and a man from the people marry a great lady by fairly winning her. Do not, after this, complain that I have left you in the dark, or that you do not know how it happened. It is as clear as water, and it was about four months from the time Nino saw Hedwig in St. Peter's to the time when he first sang in public.

Christmas pa.s.sed by,--thank heaven the munic.i.p.ality has driven away those most detestable pifferari who played on their discordant bagpipes at every corner for a fortnight, and nearly drove me erazy,--and the Befana, as we call the Epiphany in Rome, was gone, with its gay racket, and the night fair in the Piazza Navona, and the days for Nino's first appearance drew near. I never knew anything about the business arrangements for the _debut_, since De Pretis settled all that with Jacovacci, the impresario; but I know that there were many rehearsals, and that I was obliged to stand security to the theatrical tailor, together with De Pretis, in order that Nino might have his dress made. As for the cowl in the last act, De Pretis has a brother who is a monk, and between them they put together a very decent friar's costume; and Mariuccia had a good piece of rope which Nino used for a girdle.

"What does it matter?" he said, with much good sense. "For if I sing well, they will not look at my monk's hood; and if I sing badly, I may be dressed like the Holy Father and they will hiss me just the same.

But in the beginning I must look like a courtier, and be dressed like one."

"I suppose so," said I; "but I wish you had taken to philosophy."

CHAPTER VI

I shall never forget the day of Nino's first appearance. You may imagine whether we were in a state of excitement or not, after all these years of studying and waiting. There was much more trouble and worry than if he had written a great book, and was just to publish it, and receive the homage of all the learning and talent in Europe; which is the kind of _debut_ I had hoped he would make in life, instead of putting on a foolish dress and stamping about on a stage, and squalling love songs to a packed house, making pantomime with his hands, and altogether behaving like an idiot,--a crowd of people ready to hiss him at the slightest indication of weakness, or to carry him on their shoulders if they fancied his voice to their taste.

No wonder Nino was sad and depressed all day, and when he tried his voice in the afternoon thought it was less clear than usual, and stared at himself in the looking-gla.s.s, wondering whether he were not too ugly altogether, as I always told him. To tell the truth, he was not so ugly as he had been; for the months with the contessina had refined him singularly, and perhaps he had caught a certain grace of manner from the baroness. He had grown more silent too, and seemed always preoccupied, as well he might be: but he had concealed his affair with the Lira family from me until that day, and I supposed him anxious about his appearance.

Early in the morning came De Pretis, and suggested that it would be better for Nino to take a walk and breathe the fresh air a little; so I bade him go, and I did not see him again until the afternoon. De Pretis said that the only cause for anxiety was from stage fright, and went away taking snuff and flourishing his immense cotton handkerchief. I thought a man must be a fool to work for years in order to sing, and then, when he had learned to do it quite well, to be afraid of showing what he knew. I did not think Nino would be frightened.

Of course there was a final rehearsal at eleven, and Nino put off the hour of the lesson with the contessina to three in the afternoon, by some excuse or other. He must have felt very much pressed for time, having to give her a lesson on the very day of his coming out; and besides, he knew very well that it might be the last of his days with her, and that a great deal would depend on the way he bore himself at his trial. He sang badly, or thought he did, at the rehearsal, and grew more and more depressed and grave as the day advanced. He came out of the little stage door of the Apollo theatre at Tor di Nona, and his eyes fell upon the broad bills and posters announcing the first appearance of "Giovanni Cardegna, the most distinguished pupil of the Maestro Ercole de Pretis, in Donizetti's opera the 'Favorita.'" His heart sank at the sight of his own name, and he turned towards the Bridge of Sant' Angelo to get away from it. He was the last to leave the theatre, and De Pretis was with him.

At that moment he saw Hedwig von Lira sitting in an open carriage in front of the box office. De Pretis bowed low; she smiled; and Nino took off his hat, but would not go near her, escaping in the opposite direction. He thought she looked somewhat surprised, but his only idea was to get away, lest she should call him and put some awkward question.

An hour and a half later he entered her sitting-room. There she sat, as usual, with her books, awaiting him perhaps for the last time, a fair, girlish figure with gold hair, but oh, so cold!--it makes me shiver to think of how she used to look. Possibly there was a dreaminess about her blue eyes that made up for her manner; but how Nino could love her I cannot understand. It must have been like making love to a pillar of ice.

"I am much indebted to you for allowing me to come at this hour, signorina," he said, as he bowed.

"Ah, professore, it looks almost as though it were you yourself who were to make your _debut_" said she, laughing and leaning back in her chair. "Your name is on every corner in Rome, and I saw you coming out of a side door of the theatre this morning." Nino trembled, but reflected that if she had suspected anything she would not have made so light of it.

"The fact is, signorina, my cousin is so nervous that he begged me earnestly to be present at the rehearsal this morning; and as it is the great event of his life, I could not easily refuse him. I presume you are going to hear him, since I saw your carriage at the theatre."