The servant who opened the door smiled. He was a man of thirty-five, or
thereabouts, with cheerful blue eyes, a brown moustache and pink
cheeks. He wore a blue cotton apron and had a feather duster in his
hand; and he smiled very pleasantly.
'Madame Bonanni said she would see me this morning,' Margaret
explained.
'What name, if you please?' the man asked, contemplating her with
approval.
'Miss Donne.' 'Very well. But Madame is in her bath,' observed the servant, showing
no inclination to let Margaret pass. 'Mademoiselle would do better to
come another day.' 'But Madame Bonanni has given me an appointment.'
'It is possible,' the man replied, still smiling calmly.
'I have come to sing to her,' Margaret said, with a little impatience.
'Ah--then it is different!' He positively beamed. 'Then Mademoiselle is
a musician? Who would have thought it?'
Margaret was not quite sure who would have thought it, but she thought
the servant decidedly familiar. At that moment he stood aside for her
to pass, shut the front door after her and led the way to the short
flight of steps that gave access to the house from the carriage
entrance.
'This way, Mademoiselle. If Mademoiselle will be good enough to wait, I
will inform Madame.' 'Please don't disturb her! You said she was in her bath.'
'Oh, that has no importance!' the man cried cheerfully, and disappeared
at once.
Margaret looked about her, but if she had been blind she would have
been aware that she was in a place quite unlike any she had ever been
in before. The air had an indescribable odour that was almost a taste;
it smelt of Houbigant, Greek tobacco, Persian carpets, women's clothes,
liqueur and late hours; and it was not good to breathe--except,
perhaps, for people used to the air of the theatre. Margaret at first
saw nothing particular to sit upon, and stood still.
It was a big room, with two very large windows on one side, a massive
chimney-piece at the end opposite the door, and facing the windows the
most enormous divan Margaret had ever seen. Over this a great canopy
was stretched, a sort of silk awning of which the corners were
stretched out and held up by more or less mediæval lances. The divan
itself was so high that an ordinary person would have to climb upon it,
and it was completely covered by a wild confusion of cushions of all
colours, thrown upon it and piled up, and tumbling off, as if a Homeric
pillow fight had just been fought upon it by several scores of vigorous
school-girls.