Margaret was not quite sure how she could find her way to Madame
Bonanni's dressing-room at the Opéra, but she had no intention of
missing the appointment. The most natural and easy way of managing
matters would be to ask her teacher to go with her, and she could then
spend the night at the latter's house. She accordingly stopped there
before she went to the station.
The elderly artist burst into tears on hearing the result of the
interview with Madame Bonanni, and fell upon Margaret's neck.
'I knew it,' she said. 'I was sure of it, but I did not dare to tell
you so!' Margaret was very happy, but she was a little nervous about her frock
and wondered whether tears stained, as sea water does. The old singer
was of a very different type from Madame Bonanni, and had never enjoyed
such supremacy as the latter, even for a few months. But she had been
admired for her perfect method, her good acting, and her agreeable
voice, and for having made the most of what nature had given her; and
when she had retired from the stage comparatively young, as the wife of
the excellent Monsieur Durand, she had already acquired a great
reputation as a model for young singers, and she soon consented to give
lessons.
Unfortunately, Monsieur Durand had made ducks and drakes of
her earnings in a few years, by carefully mis-investing every penny she
possessed; but as he had then lost no time in destroying himself by the
over-use of antidotes to despair, such as absinthe, his widow had soon
re-established the equilibrium of her finances by hard work and was at
the present time one of the most famous teachers of singers for the
stage. Madame Durand was a Neapolitan by birth and had been known to
modest fame on the stage as Signora De Rosa, that being her real name;
for Italian singers seem to be the only ones who do not care for
high-sounding pseudonyms. She was a voluble little person, over-flowing
with easy feeling which made her momentarily intensely happy,
miserable, or angry, as the case might be. Whichever it might be, she
generally shed abundant tears.
Margaret went back to Versailles feeling very happy, but determined to
say nothing of what had happened except to Mrs. Rushmore, who need only
know that Madame Bonanni had spoken in an encouraging way and wished to
see her at the theatre. For the girl herself found it hard to believe
half of what the prima donna had told her, and was far from believing
that she was on the eve of signing her first engagement.