The ripe round notes of Lisa’s mezzo soprano rose full and strong in one of Conconi’s exercises as la Zia opened the door. She attacked a florid passage with force and precision, ran rapidly up the scale to A sharp, and held the high note long and clear as the call of a bird.
“Brava, brava!” cried Signor Zinco, banging down a chord and rising from the piano as Vansittart entered.
Lisa flew to meet him. She was in her black frock, with a bit of scarlet ribbon tied round her throat, and another bit of scarlet tying up her great untidy knot of blue-black hair. The rusty black gown, the scarlet ribbons, the olive face, with its carnation flush and starlike eyes, made a brilliant picture after the school of Murillo. Vansittart could but see that she was strikingly handsome—just the kind of woman to take the town by storm, if she were once seen and heard in opera bouffe.
Zinco was a little old man, with no more figure than an eighteen-gallon cask. He had a large bald head, and benevolent eyes. He was very shabby. His coat, which might once have been black, was now a dull green—his old grey trousers were kneed and frayed, his old fat hands were dirty.
“Ah, I thought you had forgotten me again,” said Lisa. “But you are here at last; and now ask the master if he is pleased with me.”
“I am more than pleased,” began Zinco, bowing and smiling at Vansittart as one who would fain have prostrated himself at the feet of so exalted a patron.
“Stay,” cried Lisa. “You shall not talk of me before my face. I will go and make the tea—and then Zinco will tell you the truth, Si’or mio, the very truth about me. He will not be obliged to praise.”
She dashed out of the room, as if blown out on a strong wind, so impetuous were her movements. La Zia began to clear a table for tea, a table heaped with sheets of music and playbooks. Fiordelisa had been learning English out of Gilbert’s librettos, which were harder work for her than Metastasio for an English student.
“Well, Signor Zinco, what do you think of your pupil?” asked Vansittart.
“Sir, she is of a marvellous natural. She has an enormous talent, and with that talent an enormous energy. She is destined to a prodigious success upon the English scene.”
“I am delighted to hear it.”
“She has all the qualities which succeed with your English people—a fine voice, a fine person, and—that that may not displease you—a vulgarity which will command applause. Were I more diplomatist I should say genius—where I say vulgarity—but this divine creature is adorably vulgar. She has no nerves. I say to her sing, and she sings. ‘Attack me the A sharp,’ and she attacks, and the note rings out like a bell. She is without nerves, and she is without self-consciousness, and she has the courage of a lion. She has worked as no pupil of mine ever worked before. She is mastering your difficult language in as many months as it cost me years. She has laboured at the theory of music, and though she is in most things of a surprising ignorance, she has made no mean progress in that difficult science. She has worked as Garcia’s gifted daughter worked; and were this age worthy of a second Malibran, she has in her the stuff to make a Malibran.”
The fat little maestro stopped for breath, not for words. He stood mopping his forehead and smiling at Vansittart, who was inclined to believe in his sincerity, for that roulade he had heard at the door just now displayed a voice of brilliant quality.
“You are enthusiastic, Signor Zinco,” he said quietly. “And pray when you have trained this fine voice to the uttermost what do you intend to do with it?”
“I hope to place the Signora in the way of making her fortune. Were you English a nation of music-lovers, I should say to this dear lady, give yourself up to hard study of classical opera for the next three years, before you allow yourself to be heard in public; but pardon me if I say, Signor, you English are not connoisseurs. You are taken with show and brilliancy. You think more of youth and beauty in the prima donna than of finish or science. Before your winter season of opera bouffe shall begin the Signora will have learnt enough to ensure her a succès fou. I count upon getting her engaged at the Apollo in November. There is a new opera being written for the Apollo—an opera in which I am told there are several female characters, and there will be a chance for a new singer. I have already spoken to the manager, and he has promised to hear the Signora sing before concluding his autumn engagements.”
“Festina lente, Signor Zinco. You are going at railroad pace. Do not spoil the Signora’s future by a hasty début.”
“Have no fear, sir. She will have all the summer for practice, and for further progress in English. A foreign accent will be no disadvantage. It takes with an English audience. You have had so many sham Italians in opera that it will be well to have a real one.”
The maestro bowed himself out, as Fiordelisa came in with the tea-tray, beaming with smiles, happy and important. She placed a chair for Vansittart by the open window. She arranged the light bamboo table in front of him, and began to pour out the tea, while la Zia seated herself at a little distance.
“I have learnt to make tea in your English fashion,” Lisa said gaily, as she handed the teacups. “Strong, oh, so strong. No xe vero? Our neighbour on the upper floor taught me. She laughed at my tea one
