'Do you know that you are quite the rudest and most brutal person I
ever met?' inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows.
But Schreiermeyer now smiled in the most pleasant manner possible,
ceased glaring, spread out his palms and put his head on one side as he
answered her, apparently much pleased by her estimate of him.
'Ah, you are not phlegmatic, like Logotheti! We shall be good friends.
I shall be rude to you when I am in a rage, and tell you the truth, and
you shall call me many bad names. Then we shall be perfectly good
friends. You will say, "Bah! it is only old Schreiermeyer!" and I shall
say, "Pshaw! Cordova may call me a brute, but she is the greatest
soprano in the world, what does it matter?" Do you see? We are going to
be good friends!' It was impossible not to laugh at his way of putting it; impossible,
too, not to feel that behind his strange manner, his brutal speeches
and his serio-comic rage there was the character of a man who would
keep his word and who expected others to do the same. There might even
be lurking somewhere in him a streak of generosity.
'Good friends?' he repeated, with an interrogation.
'Yes, good friends,' Margaret answered, taking his hand frankly and
still smiling.
'I like you,' said Schreiermeyer, looking at her with sudden
thoughtfulness, as if he had just discovered something.
And then without a word he turned on his heel and disappeared as
quickly as he had come, his head sinking between his shoulders till the
collar of the snuff-coloured overcoat he wore in spite of the warm
weather was almost up to the brim of his hat behind.
Logotheti and little Madame De Rosa came up to Margaret at once. The
other singers were already filing out, eager to get into the fresh air.
'The Signora,' said Logotheti, 'says she will come and lunch with me.
Will you come too? I daresay we shall find something ready, and then,
if you like, I'll run you out to Mrs. Rushmore's in the motor car.' Margaret hesitated a moment, and looked from one to the other. She was
very hungry, and the prospect of a luxurious luncheon was much more
alluring than that of the rather scrappy sort of meal she had expected
to get at a Bouillon Duval. As 'Miss Donne,' a fortnight ago, she would
certainly not have thought of going to Logotheti's house, except with
Mrs. Rushmore; but as the proposal tempted her she found it easy to
tell herself that since she was a real artist she could go where she
pleased, that people would gossip about her wherever she went, and that
what she did was nobody's business. And surely, for an artist, Madame
De Rosa was a chaperon of sufficient weight. Moreover, Margaret was
curious to see the place where the man lived. He interested her in
spite of herself, and since Lushington had insisted on going off,
though she had begged him to stay, she felt just a little reckless.