Then she remembered the last hour they had spent together at Madame
Bonanni's, and the quiet dignity and courage of his behaviour under
circumstances that might almost have driven a sensitive man out of his
senses.
She thought of him a great deal that afternoon, and the result of her
thoughts was that she resolved not to go to Logotheti's house again,
though she had a vague idea that such a resolution should not be
connected with Lushington, if she meant to respect her own
independence. But when she had reached this complicated state of mind,
both Lushington and Logotheti took themselves suddenly out of the
sphere of her meditations, and she was standing once more on the
half-lighted stage, singing 'Anges pures' into the abyss of the dark
and empty house.
The evening post brought Margaret three notes from Paris. One, in bad
French, was from Schreiermeyer, to say that he had changed his mind,
that she was to make her début in Rigoletto instead of in Faust,
and that a rehearsal of the former opera was called for the next day
but one at eleven o'clock, at which, by kindness of the director of the
Opéra, she would be allowed to sing the part of Gilda.
When she read this, her face fell, and she felt a sharp little
disappointment. She had already fancied herself Marguerite, the
fair-haired Gretchen, mass-book in hand and eyes cast down, and then at
the spinning-wheel, and in the church, and in the prison, and it was an
effort of imagination to turn herself into the Italian Duke's Gilda,
murdered to save her lover and dragged away in the sack--probably by
proxy!
The next note was from Logotheti, who begged her to use his motor car
for going in to her rehearsals. The chauffeur would bring it to Mrs.
Rushmore's gate, the day after to-morrow, in plenty of time. The note
was in French and ended with the assurance of 'most respectful homage.' When she had read it she stared rather vacantly into the corner of her
room for a few seconds, and then tossed the bit of paper into the
basket under her writing-table.
The third letter was from Lushington. She had recognised the small
scholarly handwriting and had purposely laid it aside to read last. It
was rather stiffly worded, and it contained a somewhat unnecessary and
not very contrite apology for having seemed rude that morning in
answering her question so roughly and in hurrying away. He had not much
else to say, except that he was going back at once to his London
lodgings in Bolton Street--a hint that if Margaret wished to write to
him he was to be found there.