For with very little pressing Glorioli stood up on the platform, with his accompanist by his side at the piano, and in his hands a sheet of music, at which he never looked. He looked at the beautiful ladies, and ogled and smiled; and from his scarcely parted, moist, thick, bearded lips, which he always licked before singing, there issued the most ravishing sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or woman or boy! He could sing both high and low and soft and loud, and the frivolous were bewitched, as was only to be expected; but even the earnestest of all, caught, surprised, rapt, astounded, shaken, tickled, teased, harrowed, tortured, tantalized, aggravated, seduced, demoralized, corrupted into naturalness, forgot to dissemble their delight.

And Sebastian Bach (the especially adored of all really great musicians, and also, alas! of many priggish outsiders who don't know a single note and can't remember a single tune) was well forgotten for the night; and who were more enthusiastic than the two great players who had been playing Bach that evening? For these, at all events, were broad and catholic and sincere, and knew what was beautiful, whatever its kind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BONJOUR, SUZON!"]

It was but a simple little song that Glorioli sang, as light and pretty as it could well be, almost worthy of the words it was written to, and the words are De Musset's; and I love them so much I cannot resist the temptation of setting them down here, for the mere sensuous delight of writing them, as though I had just composed them myself:

"Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois!

Es-tu toujours la plus jolie?

Je reviens, tel que tu me vois, D'un grand voyage en Italie!

Du paradis j'ai fait le tour-- J'ai fait des vers--j'ai fait l'amour....

Mais que t'importe!

Mais que t'importe!

Je pa.s.se devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte!

Ouvre ta porte!

Bonjour, Suzon!

"Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas.

Ton cur joyeux venait d'eclore, Et tu disais: 'je ne veux pas, Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore.'

Qu'as-tu fait depuis mon depart?

Qui part trop tot revient trop tard.

Mais que m'importe?

Mais que m'importe?

Je pa.s.se devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte!

Ouvre ta porte!

Bonjour, Suzon!"

And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it was over, one felt really sorry for all the other singers. And n.o.body sang any more that night; for Glorioli was tired, and wouldn't sing again, and none were bold enough or disinterested enough to sing after him.

Some of my readers may remember that meteoric bird of song, who, though a mere amateur, would condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in the saloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); who would sing still better for love and glory in the studios of his friends.

For Glorioli--the biggest, handsomest, and most distinguished-looking Jew that ever was--one of the Sephardim (one of the Seraphim!)--hailed from Spain, where he was junior partner in the great firm of Morales, Perales, Gonzales & Glorioli, wine-merchants, Malaga. He travelled for his own firm; his wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. But his voice would bring him far more gold in the month he spent here; for his wines have been equalled--even surpa.s.sed--but there was no voice like his anywhere in the world, and no more finished singer.

Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee's head more than any wine, and the boy could talk of nothing else for days and weeks; and was so exuberant in his expressions of delight and grat.i.tude that the great singer took a real fancy to him (especially when he was told that this fervent boyish admirer was one of the greatest of English painters); and as a mark of his esteem, privately confided to him after supper that every century two human nightingales were born--only two! a male and a female; and that he, Glorioli, was the representative "male rossignol of this soi-disant dix-neuvieme siecle."

"I can well believe that! And the female, your mate that should be--_la rossignolle_, if there is such a word?" inquired Little Billee.

"Ah! mon ami ... it was Alboni till la pet.i.te Adelina Patti came out a year or two ago; and now it is _la Svengali_."

"La Svengali?"

"Oui, mon fy! You will hear her some day--et vous m'en direz des nouvelles!"

"Why, you don't mean to say that she's got a better voice than Madame Alboni?"

"Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing--until you have tried a peach!

Her voice to that of Alboni is as a peach to an apple--I give you my word of honor! but bah! the voice is a detail. It's what she does with it--it's incredible! it gives one cold all down the back! it drives you mad! it makes you weep hot tears by the spoonful! Ah! the tear, mon fy!

tenez! I can draw everything but _that_! ca n'est pas dans mes cordes!

_I_ can only madden with _love_! But la Svengali!... And then, in the middle of it all, prrrout!... she makes you laugh! Ah! le beau rire!

faire rire avec des larmes plein les yeux--voila qui me pa.s.se!... Mon ami, when I heard her it made me swear that even _I_ would never try to sing any more--it seemed _too_ absurd! and I kept my word for a month at least--and you know, je sais ce que je vaux, moi!"

"You are talking of la Svengali, I bet," said Signor Spartia.

"Oui, parbleu! You have heard her?"

"Yes--at Vienna last winter," rejoined the greatest singing-master in the world. "J'en suis fou! helas! I thought _I_ could teach a woman how to sing till I heard that blackguard Svengali's pupil. He has married her, they say!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HUMAN NIGHTINGALE]

"That _blackguard_ Svengali!" exclaimed Little Billee ... "why, that must be a Svengali I knew in Paris--a famous pianist! a friend of mine!"

"That's the man! also une fameuse c.r.a.pule (sauf vot' respect); his real name is Adler; his mother was a Polish singer; and he was a pupil at the Leipsic Conservatorio. But he's an immense artist, and a great singing-master, to teach a woman like that! and such a woman! belle comme un ange--mais bete comme un pot. I tried to talk to her--all she can say is 'ja wohl,' or 'doch,' or 'nein,' or 'soh'! not a word of English or French or Italian, though she sings them, oh! but _divinely_!

It is '_il bel canto_' come back to the world after a hundred years...."

"But what voice is it?" asked Little Billee.

"Every voice a mortal woman can have--three octaves--four! and of such a quality that people who can't tell one tune from another cry with pleasure at the mere sound of it directly they hear her; just like anybody else. Everything that Paganini could do with his violin she does with her voice--only better--and what a voice! un vrai baume!"

"Now I don't mind petting zat you are schbeaking of la Sfencali," said Herr Kreutzer, the famous composer, joining in. "Quelle merfeille, hein?

I heard her in St. Betersburg, at ze Vinter Balace. Ze vomen all vent mat, and pulled off zeir bearls and tiamonts and kave zem to her--vent town on zeir knees and gried and gissed her hants. She t.i.t not say vun vort! She t.i.t not efen schmile! Ze men schnifelled in ze gorners, and looked at ze bictures, and tissempled--efen I, Johann Kreutzer! efen ze Emperor!"

"You're joking," said Little Billee.

"My vrent, I neffer choke ven I talk apout zinging. You vill hear her zum tay yourzellof, and you vill acree viz me zat zere are two cla.s.ses of beoble who zing. In ze vun cla.s.s, la Sfencali; in ze ozzer, all ze ozzer zingers!"

"And does she sing good music?"

"I ton't know. _All_ music is koot ven _she_ zings it. I forket ze zong; I can only sink of ze zinger. Any koot zinger can zing a peautiful zong and kif bleasure, I zubboce! But I voot zooner hear la Sfencali zing a scale zan anypotty else zing ze most peautiful zong in ze vorldt--efen vun of my own! Zat is berhaps how zung ze crate Italian zingers of ze last century. It vas a lost art, and she has found it; and she must haf pecun to zing pefore she pecan to schpeak--or else she voot not haf hat ze time to learn all zat she knows, for she is not yet zirty! She zings in Paris in Ogdoper, Gott sei dank! and gums here after Christmas to zing at Trury Lane. Chullien kifs her ten sousand bounts!"

"I wonder, now! Why, that must be the woman I heard at Warsaw two years ago--or three," said young Lord Witlow. "It was at Count Siloszech's.

He'd heard her sing in the streets, with a tall, black-bearded ruffian, who accompanied her on a guitar, and a little fiddling gypsy fellow. She was a handsome woman, with hair down to her knees, but stupid as an owl.

She sang at Siloszech's, and all the fellows went mad and gave her their watches and diamond studs and gold scarf-pins. By gad! I never heard or saw anything like it. I don't know much about music myself--couldn't tell 'G.o.d Save the Queen' from 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' if the people didn't get up and stand and take their hats off; but I was as mad as the rest--why, I gave her a little German silver vinaigrette I'd just bought for my wife; hanged if I didn't--and I was only just married, you know!

It's the peculiar tw.a.n.g of her voice, I suppose!"

And hearing all this, Little Billee made up his mind that life had still something in store for him, since he would some day hear la Svengali.

Anyhow, he wouldn't shoot himself till then!

Thus the night wore itself away. The Prinzessen, Comtessen, and Serene English Altessen (and other ladies of less exalted rank) departed home in cabs and carriages; and hostess and daughters went to bed. Late sitters of the ruder s.e.x supped again, and smoked and chatted and listened to comic songs and recitations by celebrated actors. n.o.ble dukes hobn.o.bbed with low comedians; world-famous painters and sculptors sat at the feet of Hebrew capitalists and aitchless millionaires.

Judges, cabinet ministers, eminent physicians, and warriors and philosophers saw Sunday morning steal over Campden Hill and through the many windows of Mechelen Lodge, and listened to the pipe of half-awakened birds, and smelled the freshness of the dark summer dawn.

And as Taffy and the Laird walked home to the Old Hummums by daylight, they felt that last night was ages ago, and that since then they had foregathered with "much there was of the best in London." And then they reflected that "much there was of the best in London" were still strangers to them--except by reputation--for there had not been time for many introductions: and this had made them feel a little out of it; and they found they hadn't had such a very good time after all. And there were no cabs. And they were tired, and their boots were tight.

And the last they had seen of Little Billee before leaving was a glimpse of their old friend in a corner of Lady Cornelys's boudoir, gravely playing cup-and-ball with Fred Walker for sixpences--both so rapt in the game that they were unconscious of anything else, and both playing so well (with either hand) that they might have been professional champions!

And that saturnine young sawbones, Jakes Talboys (now Sir Jakes, and one of the most genial of Her Majesty's physicians), who sometimes after supper and champagne was given to thoughtful, sympathetic, and acute observation of his fellow-men, remarked to the Laird in a whisper that was almost convivial: "Rather an enviable pair! Their united ages amount to forty-eight or so, their united weights to about fifteen stone, and they couldn't carry you or me between them. But if you were to roll all the other brains that have been under this roof to-night into one, you wouldn't reach the sum of their united genius.... I wonder which of the two is the most unhappy!"