And then a fool had stepped in to spoil sport—a besotted fool who took this girl for his wife, careless of her surroundings, defiant of Fate, which might overtake him in the shape of a blackguard brother. He felt only contempt for Vansittart when he thought over the story.
“He might have been content with his Venetian sweetheart,” he thought. She is ever so much handsomer than Eve, and she obviously adored him; while that kind of ménage has the convenience of being easily got rid of when a man tires of it.
The snow lay deep on all the country round before nightfall, and Sefton went back to his nest in Chelsea on the following afternoon, and was in a stall at the Apollo in the evening. He tried to persuade himself that the music was the chief attraction.
“Your music is like a vice, Hawberk,” he told the composer, at a tea-party next day. “It takes possession of a man. I go night after night to hear Fanchonette, though I know I am wasting my time.”
“Thanks. Fanchonette is a very pretty opera, quite the best thing I have done,” replied Hawberk, easily; “and it is very well sung and acted. The singing is good all round, but Lisa Vivanti is a pearl.”
“You are enthusiastic,” said Sefton; and then smiling at the composer’s young wife, who went everywhere with her husband, and whose province was to wear smart frocks and look pretty. “You must keep your eye upon him, Mrs. Hawberk, lest this Venetian siren should prove as fatal as the Lurlei.”
“No fear,” cried Hawberk. “Little Lisa is as straight as an arrow and as good as gold. She lives as sedately as a nun, with a comfortable dragon in the shape of an aunt. She would hardly look at a ripping diamond bracelet which some cad sent her the other day. She just tossed bracelet and letter over to her old singing master, and told him to send it back to the giver. She has no desire for carriages and horses and fine raiment. She comes to the theatre in a shabby little black frock, and she lives like a peasant on a third floor in this neighbourhood.”
“That will not last,” said Sefton. “Your rara avis will soon realize her own value. The management will be called upon to provide her with a stable and a chef, and diamonds will be accepted freely as fitting tribute to her talents.”
“I don’t believe it. I think she is a genuine, honest, right-minded young woman, and that she will gang her ain gait in spite of all counter influences. There may have been some love affair in the past that has sobered her. I think there has been; for there is a little boy who calls her mother, and for whom she takes no trouble to account. I will vouch for my little Lisa, and I have allowed Mrs. Hawberk to go and see her.”
“She is quite too sweet,” assented the lady; “such a perfectly naive little person.”
“Upon my honour,” said Hawberk, as his wife fluttered away and was absorbed in a group of acquaintances, “I believe Vivanti is a good woman, in spite of the little peccadillo in a sailor suit.”
“I am very glad to hear it, for I want you to introduce me to the lady.”
“Oh, but really now that is just what I don’t care about doing. She is keeping herself to herself, and is working conscientiously at her musical education. She is a very busy woman, and she has no idea of society, or its ways and manners. What can she want with such an acquaintance as you?”
“Nothing; but I very much want to know her; and I pledge myself to approach her with all the respect due to the best woman in England.”
“To approach her, yes; I can believe that. No doubt Lucifer approached Eve with all possible courtesy; yet the acquaintance ended badly. I don’t see that any good could arise from your acquaintance with my charming Venetian.”
“I understand,” said Sefton, with an aggrieved air; “she is so charming that you would like to keep her all to yourself.”
“Oh, come now, that’s a very weak thing in the way of sneers,” exclaimed the composer. “I hope I am secure from any insinuations of that sort. Look here, Sefton, I’m just a bit afraid of you; but if you promise to act on the square I’ll get my wife to send you a card for a Sunday evening, at which I believe she is going to get Vivanti to sing for her. That is always the first thing Lavinia thinks of if I venture to introduce her to a singer.”
“That would be very friendly of you, and I promise to act on the square. I am not a married man, and I am my own master. If I were desperately in love—”
“You wouldn’t marry a Venetian lace-maker, with a damaged reputation. I know you too well to believe you capable of that sort of thing.”
“Nobody knows of what a man is capable; least of all the man himself,” said Sefton, sententiously.
Mr. and Mrs. Hawberk lived in a smart little house in that dainty and artistic region of Cheyne Walk, which even yet retains a faint flavour of Don Saltero, of Bolingbroke and Walpole, of Chelsea buns and Chelsea china, Ranelagh routs, and Thames watermen. Mr. Hawberk’s house was in a terrace at right angles with the Embankment, but further west than Tite Street. It was a new house, with all the latest improvements, and all the latest fads—tiny panes to Queen
