And everything is so much more comfortable now; Miss Girond has taken a room with Mrs. Grey; then we go home always together, and she has the use of the piano--"

"Miss Ross, please!" called a voice at the door.

"All right!" she called in reply.

"The chorus is on, miss."

"All right!"

"Ah," she continued, "it is so good to see you back, Leo; yes, yes?

London was a stranger city when you were away--there was no one. And it is all you I have to thank, Leo, for my introduction here and my good-fortune--"

"Oh, nonsense, Nina!" he said. "What else could I have done? It isn't you who ought to thank me--it's Lehmann; I consider him precious lucky to have got a subst.i.tute for Miss Burgoyne so easily. So Miss Burgoyne is coming back on Monday?"

"Yes," said Nina, as she went to the door. "Shall I see you again, Leo, to-night?"

"Oh, I'm coming to hear you sing 'Now to the dance,'" he said, as he followed her out into the corridor and ascended with her into the wings.

This was a busy act for Nina; and the next time he had an opportunity of talking with her was after she had dressed herself in her bridal robes and was come up ready to go on the stage. Nina looked a little self-conscious when she first encountered him in this attire; perhaps she was afraid of his contrasting her appearance with that of Miss Burgoyne. If he did, it was certainly not to Nina's disadvantage. No; Nina was much more distinguished-looking and refined than the pert little doll-like bride represented by Miss Burgoyne; she wore the gorgeous costume of flowered white satin with ease and grace; and her portentous white wig, with its feathered brilliants and strings of pearls, seemed to add a greater depth and softness and mild l.u.s.tre to her dark, expressive eyes. For an instant, as she came up to him, those beautiful, liquid eyes were turned to the ground.

"I did not choose anything, Leo," she said, modestly; "I have had to copy Miss Burgoyne."

"Well, there's a difference somehow, Nina," said he, "and I think Miss Burgoyne had better begin and copy you."

For a swift instant she raised her eyes; she was more than pleased. But she said nothing--indeed, she had now to go on the stage. And if he had contrasted her appearance favorably with that of Miss Burgoyne, he was now inclined to give a similar verdict with regard to her acting. It certainly wanted the self-confidence of long experience and also the emphasis and exaggeration of comedy-opera; it was not nearly impudent enough for the upper gallery; but it was graceful and natural to a degree that surprised him. As for her voice, that was incomparably better than Miss Burgoyne's; it was a fresh, sympathetic, finely modulated voice that had been uninjured by excessive training or excessive work. Lionel was quite proud of his _protegee_; unseen, here in the wings, he could applaud as loudly as any; if Nina did not hear, she must have been deaf. And when she came off at the end of the act--or, rather, immediately after the recall, which was as enthusiastic as the soul of actor or actress could desire--there was no stint to his praise; and Nina's heartfelt pleasure on hearing this warm commendation shone through all her stage make-up. He asked if he should wait to act as escort to Miss Girond and herself; but Nina said no; Miss Girond and she went home every night by themselves in a four-wheeled cab; she knew he must be tired after his long journey; and he must go away and get to bed at once. So Lionel shook hands with her and left the theatre, and walked carelessly and absently home to his lodgings in Piccadilly.

Well, he was glad to find his old friend and comrade, Nina, getting on so well and so proud of her success and looking so charming in her new part; and he guessed that she must have written to the grumbling old Pandiani, and sent photographs of herself as Grace Mainwaring to Andrea and Carmela and her other Neapolitan friends. But it was not of Nina that he thought long, as he lay in the easy-chair and smoked, and listened to the heavy murmur of the streets without. He had not got used to London yet. The theatre seemed to him a great, glaring thing; the lime-light an impertinent sham; even the applause of the delighted audience somehow brutal and offensive. There was no repose, no reticence, no self-respect and modesty about the whole affair; it was all too violent; a fanfaronade; a coa.r.s.e and ostentatious make-believe, that seemed a kind of insult to a quiet mind. He turned away from it altogether. His fancies had fled to the North again; the long railway journey was annihilated; again he was driving out to the still and beautiful valley, where those kind friends were standing at the door of the lodge, fluttering a white welcome to him. He goes down the steep hillside; he crosses the stream at the Horse's Drink; he reaches the hall-door and is shaking hands with this one and that. And if the tall, proud maiden with the fine forehead and the clear, calm hazel eyes is not among this group, be sure she will be here in the evening to add her greeting to the rest. Oh, to think of that next morning--the sweet air blowing down from the hills--the silver lights among the purple clouds--the Aivron swinging along its gravelly bed, a deep, clear bronze where the sunlight strikes the shallows! Farther and farther into the solitudes these two idly wander--away from human ken--until the dogs in the kennels are no longer heard, nor is there even a black-c.o.c.k crowing in the woods; nothing but the hum of the bees, and the whisper of the birch branches, and the hushed, low thunder of the Geinig falls. He could almost hear it now; or was not the continuous murmur that dazed and dinned his ears a sadly different sound--the m.u.f.fled roar of cabs and carriages along Piccadilly, bearing home this teeming population from the blare and glare of the crowded theatres? A different sound indeed! He had come into another world; and the Aivron and Geinig, far away, were alone with the darkness and the stars.

CHAPTER XIV.

A MAGNANIMOUS RIVAL.

That Monday night at the New Theatre was a great occasion; for, although there were a few people (themselves not of much account, perhaps) who went about saying there was no one in London, an enormous house welcomed back to the stage those well-known favorites, Miss Burgoyne and Mr.

Lionel Moore. And what had become of the Aivron and the Geinig now?--their distant murmurs were easily drowned in the roar of enthusiasm with which the vast audience--a ma.s.s of orange-hued faces they seemed across the footlights--greeted the prima-donna and the popular young baritone. Nina was here also, in her subordinate part. And all that Miss Burgoyne could do, on the stage and off the stage, to attract his attention, did not hinder Lionel from watching, with the most affectionate interest, the manner in which his _protegee_, his old comrade Nina, was acquitting herself. Clara was perhaps a little bit too eager and anxious; she antic.i.p.ated her cues; her parted lips seemed to repeat what was being said to her; lights and shadows of expression chased each other over the mobile features and brightened or darkened her eloquent eyes; and in her pa.s.sages with Grace Mainwaring she was most effusive, though that other young lady maintained a much more matter-of-fact demeanor.

"Capital, Nina! Very well done!" Lionel exclaimed (to himself) in the wings. "You're on the right track. It is easier to tone down than to brace up. Don't be afraid--keep it going--you'll grow business-like soon enough."

Here Clara had to come tripping off the stage, and Lionel had to go on; he had no opportunity of speaking to her until the end of the act, when they chanced to meet in the long glazed corridor.

"You're a bit nervous to-night, Nina," he said, in a kindly way.

"But so as to be bad?" she said, quickly and anxiously.

"It was very well done indeed--it was splendid--but you almost take too much pains. Most girls with a voice like yours would merely sing a part like that and think the management was getting enough. I suppose you don't know yourself that you keep repeating what the other person is saying to you--as if he weren't getting on fast enough--"

Nina paused for a second.

"Yes, I understand--I understand what you mean," she said, rather slowly; then she continued, in her usual way, "But to-night, Leo, I am anxious--oh, there are so many things!--this is the first time I act with Miss Burgoyne; and I wish them not to say I am a stick--for your sake, Leo--you brought me here--I must do what I can."

"Oh, Nina, you don't half value yourself!" he said. "You think far too little of yourself. You're a most wonderful creature to find in a theatre. I consider that Lehmann is under a deep obligation to me for giving him the chance of engaging you. By the way, have you heard what he means to do on Sunday week?"

"No--not at all!"

"Sat.u.r.day week is the 400th night," he continued; "and to celebrate it, Lehmann is going to give the princ.i.p.al members of the company, and a few friends, I suppose, a dinner at the Star and Garter at Richmond. Haven't you heard?--but of course he'll send you a card of invitation. The worst of it is that it is no use driving down at this time of the year; I suppose we shall have to get there just as we please, and meet in the room; but I don't know how all the proper escorts are to be arranged. I was thinking, Nina, I could take you and Miss Girond down, if you will let me."

There was a bright, quick look of pleasure in Nina's eyes--but only for an instant.

"No, no, Leo," she said, with lowered lashes. "That is not right. Miss Burgoyne and you are the two princ.i.p.al people in the theatre--you are on the stage equals--off the stage also you are her friend--you must take her to Richmond, Leo."

"Miss Burgoyne?"

But here the door of Miss Burgoyne's room was suddenly opened, and the voice of the young lady herself was heard, in unmistakably angry tones:

"Oh, bother your headache! I suppose it was your headache made you split my blue jacket in two, and I suppose it was your headache made you smash my brooch last night--I wonder what some women were born for!" And therewithal the charming Grace Mainwaring made her appearance; and not a word--hardly a look--did the indignant small lady choose to bestow on either Lionel or Nina as she brushed by them on her way up to the wings.

Yes, here he was in the theatre again, with all its trivial distractions and interests, and also its larger excitements and ambitions and rewards, not the least of which was the curious fascination he found in holding a great audience hushed and enthralled, listening breathlessly to every far-reaching, pa.s.sionate note. Then his reappearance on the stage brought him a renewal of all the friendly little attentions and hospitalities that had been interrupted by his leaving for Scotland; for if certain of his fashionable acquaintance were still away at their country houses, there were plenty of others who had returned to town.

Club life had begun again, too. But most of all, at this time, Lionel was disposed to enjoy that quiet and gentle companionship with Nina, which was so simple and frank and unreserved. He could talk to her freely, on all subjects save one--and that he was trying to put away from himself in these altered circ.u.mstances. He and she had a community of interests; there was never any lack of conversation--whether he were down in Sloane Street, drinking tea and trying over new music with her, or walking in with Miss Girond and her to the theatre through the now almost leafless Green Park. Sometimes, when she was grown petulant and fractious, he had to scold her into good-humor; sometimes she had seriously to remonstrate with him; but it was all given and taken in good part. He was never embarra.s.sed or anxious in her society; he was happy and content and careless, as she appeared to be also. He did not trouble to invent any excuse for calling upon her; he went down to Sloane Street just whenever he had a spare half-hour or hour; and if the morning was bright, or even pa.s.sable (for it was November now, and even a tolerable sort of day was welcome), and if Miss Girond did not wish to go out or had some other engagement, Nina and he would set off for a stroll by themselves, up into Kensington Gardens, it might be, or along Piccadilly, or through the busy crowds of Oxford Street; while they looked at the shops and the pa.s.sers-by, and talked about the theatre and the people in it or about old days in Naples. There was no harm; and they thought no harm. Sometimes he could hear her hum to herself a fragment of one of the old familiar canzoni--"Antoniella Antonia!" or "Voca, voca ncas' a mano"--so light-hearted was she; and occasionally they said a word to each other in Neapolitanese--but this was seldom, for Nina considered the practice to be most reprehensible. What she had chiefly to take him to task for, however, was his incurable and inordinate extravagance--wherever she was concerned especially.

"Leo, you think it is a compliment?" she said to him, earnestly. "No, not at all? I am sorry. Why should you buy for me this, that, whatever strikes your eye, and no matter the price? I have everything I desire.

Why to me?--why, if you must give, why not to your cousin you tell me of, who is so kind to the sick children in boarding them in the country?

There, now, is something worthy, something good, something to be praised--"

"Oh, preach away, Nina!" he answered, with a laugh. "But I've contributed to Francie's funds until she won't take anything more from me--not at present. But why do you always talk about saving and saving?

You are an artist, Nina, and you put such value on money!"

"But an artist grows old, Leo," she said.

"Perhaps you have been saving a little yourself, Nina?" he said, at a venture.

"Oh, yes, I have, Leo, a little," she answered, rather shamefacedly.

"What for?" he made bold to ask.

"Oh, how do I know?" she said, with downcast eyes. "Many things might happen: is it not safer? No, Leo, you must not say I love money for itself; it is not fair to me; but--but if a dear friend is ill--if a doctor says to him, 'Suspend all work and go away to Capri, to Algeria, to Eg--Egippo'--is it right?--and perhaps he has been indiscreet--he has been too generous to all his companions--he is in need--then you say, 'Here, take mine--it is between friends.' Then you are proud to have money, are you not?"

"I'm afraid, Nina, that's what they call a parable," said he, darkly.

"But I am sure of this, that if that person were to be taken ill, and were so very poor, and were to go to Nina for help, I don't think he would have to fear any refusal. And then, as you say, Nina, you would be proud to have the money--just as I know you would be ready to give it."

It was rarely that Nina blushed, but now her pretty, pale face fairly burned with conscious pleasure; and he hardly dared to look, yet he fancied there was something of moisture in the long, dark lashes, while she did not speak for some seconds. Perhaps he had been too bold in interpreting her parable.

Yes, there was no doubt that this spoiled favorite of the public, who lived amid the excitements, the flatteries, the gratifications of the moment, with hardly a thought of the future, was dreadfully extravagant, though it was rarely on himself that he lavished his reckless expenditure. Nina's protests were of no avail; whenever he saw anything pretty or odd or interesting, that he thought would please her, it was purchased there and then, to be given to her on the first opportunity.

One day he was going through Vigo Street, and noticed in a shop-window a pair of old-fashioned, silver-gilt loving-cups--those that interclasp; and forthwith he went in and bought them: "I'll take those; how much are they" being his way of bargaining. In the afternoon he carried them down to Sloane Street.

"Here, Nina, I've brought you a little present; and I'll have to show you how to use it, or you would never guess what it is for."