Fair Margaret - Page 161/206

Leading singers are very rarely attracted by each other. Perhaps that

is because they receive such a vast amount of adulation which pleases

them better, and of course there have been famous instances of the

contrary, such as Mario and Grisi. As a rule singers do not meet much

except at the theatre; it is only during rehearsals that they have a

chance of talking, and then, as everybody knows, they show the worst

side of themselves and are often in a very bad temper indeed.

Margaret had not reached that stage yet, for she had met with no

disappointments and could not complain of her manager, and moreover she

was not at all above learning what she could from her fellow-artists.

She was therefore popular with them in spite of the fact that she was a

lady born. They overlooked that, because she could sing, and the tenor

only remembered it when he tried to patronise her a little. He had

often sung with Melba, and she did this or that, and he had sung with

Bonanni and knew exactly how she sang the difficult passages, and he

reeled off the precepts and practice of half-a-dozen other lyric

sopranos, giving Margaret to understand that he was willing and able to

teach her a good deal. But she only smiled kindly, and did precisely

what Madame De Rosa told her to do, seeing that the little Neapolitan

had taught most of them what they knew. It was clear that Margaret

could not be patronised, and the other members of the company liked her

the better for it, because the tenor patronised them all and gave them

to understand that they were rather small fry compared with a man who

could hold the high C and walk off the stage with it.

From the darkness of his lower box Logotheti looked on and approved of

Margaret's behaviour. At the same time he abstracted himself from her

life and saw how she lived with respect to other men and women, and a

great change began to take place in his feelings, one of those changes

which are sometimes salutary because they may hinder an act of folly,

but which humiliate a man in his own eyes, in proportion as they are

unexpected, and tend to contradict something which he has believed to

be beyond all doubt. To many men the loss of a noble illusion feels

like a loss of strength in themselves, perhaps because such men can

never keep an ideal before them without making an unconscious effort

against the material tendency of their natures.

The change in Logotheti during the next three weeks was profound; and

it was humiliating because it deprived him all at once of a sort of

power over himself which had grown up with his love for Margaret and

depended on that for its nourishment and life; a power which had

perhaps not been an original force at all, but only a chivalrous

willingness to do her will instead of his own. He looked on and did not

betray his presence, and she, on her side, began to wonder at his

prolonged obedience. More than once she felt a sudden conviction that

he must be near, and he saw how she peered into the gloom of the empty

house as if looking for some one she expected. It was only natural, and

no theory of telepathy was needed to explain it. She had so often seen

him there in reality! But he would not show himself now, for he was

determined that she should send for him; if she did not, he could wait

for her début; and little by little, as he kept to his determination

and only saw her from a distance in the frame of the stage, the woman

who had dominated him in a moment when he was beside himself with

passion, became once more an animated work of art which he

unconsciously compared with his Aphrodite and his ancient picture, and

which he coveted as a possession.