There had not been time for the gentlest pressure of her strong, broad hand, or for his tender “Addio, bellissima mia,” to be heard.
But to know where she lived was something gained, and as he walked homeward humming “La donna è mobile,” he meant to follow up that advantage. He had told her that he was her near neighbour. He had gone even further, and had asked her if she would sing for him at a little tea-party, were he to give one in her honour; on which she had only laughed, and said that she had never heard of a man giving a tea-party.
The acquaintance begun so auspiciously gave Wilfred Sefton a new zest for London life. He hailed the hardening frosts of February with absolute pleasure, he for whom that month had hitherto been the cream of the hunting season. He cared nothing that his latest acquisitions, the hunters in whose perfections he still believed, whose vices he had not had time to discover, were eating their heads off in his Sussex stables. He was in his stall at the Apollo every night; and Lisa’s singing and Lisa’s beauty, and the “quips and cranks and wanton wiles” which constituted Lisa’s idea of acting, were enough for his contentment.
He waited till Wednesday before he ventured to call upon his divinity. He would gladly have presented himself at her door on Monday afternoon; but he did not want to appear too eager. Tuesday seemed a long blank day to his impatience, although there was plenty to do in London for a man of intellect and taste; pictures, people, politics, all manner of interests and amusements.
Lisa had told him about the aunt who lived with her and kept house for her. There could be no impropriety in his visit. He made up his mind indeed to ask for the elder lady in the first instance; but all uncertainty was saved him, as it was la Zia who opened the door. Those diamonds of Lisa’s could not have been earned so speedily had the Venetians taken upon themselves the maintenance of a servant. What was she there for, argued la Zia—when Hawberk suggested the necessity of a parlourmaid—except to sweep and dust, and market and cook? An English servant, who would want butcher’s meat every day, and would object to the cuisine à l’huile, would be a ruinous institution.
La Zia was not too tidy in her indoor apparel, since her love for finery was stronger than her sense of the fitness of things. She had one gown at a time, a gown of silk or plush or velveteen, which she wore as a best gown till it began to be shabby or dilapidated, when Lisa bought her another fine gown, and the old one was taken for daily use.
Lisa’s taste had become somewhat chastened since she had lived at Chelsea. A casual word or two from Vansittart, whose lightest speech she remembered, had made her scrupulously plain in her attire—save on such an occasion as Mrs. Hawberk’s party, when her innate love of finery showed itself in scarlet stockings and beaded shoes. This afternoon Sefton found her sitting on the hearthrug in front of the bright little tiled grate, in the black stuff gown she had worn when he first saw her, and with just the same touch of colour at her throat, and in her blue-black hair.
She and the little boy were sitting on the rug together, dividing the caprices of a white kitten, the plaything of mother and son, mother and son laughing gaily, with laughter which harmonized and sounded like music. The boy made no change in his sprawling attitude as Sefton entered; but he looked up at the stranger with large dark eyes, wondering, and slightly resentful.
“His boy,” thought Sefton, and felt a malignant disposition to kick the sprawling imp, hanging on to the mother’s skirts, and preventing her from rising to greet her visitor.
“Let go, Paolo,” said Lisa, laughing. “What with you and the kitten, I can’t stir.”
She shook herself free, transferred the kitten to the boy’s eager arms, rose, and gave Sefton her hand, with a careless grace which was charming from an artistic point of view, but which showed him how faint an impression all his attentions of Sunday night had made upon her. A woman who had thought of him in the interval would have been startled at his coming. Lisa took his visit much too easily. There was neither surprise nor gladness in her greeting.
“I saw you in the stalls,” she said, “last night, and the night before. Aren’t you tired of Fanchonette?”
“Not in the least.”
“You must be monstrously fond of music,” she said, always in Italian.
“I am—monstrously; but I have other reasons for liking Fanchonette. I like to see you act, as well as to hear you sing.”
“So do other people,” she answered, with frank vanity, tossing up her head. “They all applaud me when I first come on, before I have sung a note. I have to stand there in front of the lights for ever so long, while they go on applauding like mad. And yet people say
