'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'I'm not going to cry again--never again,
I think! It's over and finished, with the other things!' She remained in the same position nearly a minute, and then sat up
quite straight before the glass, as if nothing had happened, and
powdered her cheeks again.
Margaret sat still on the corner of the table, not at all sure of what
she had better say or do. She only hoped that Madame Bonanni would not
ask her whether she cared for Lushington and would marry him, supposing
that his scruples could be overcome, and she had a strong suspicion
that it was to ask this that Madame Bonanni had come to see her. It
would be rather hard to answer, Margaret knew, and she turned over
words and expressions in her mind.
She might have spared herself the trouble, for nothing could have been
further from her companion's thoughts just then. The dramatic moment
had passed and Margaret had scarcely noticed it, beyond being very much
surprised at the news it had brought her of the great singer's retiring
from the stage. Perhaps, too, Margaret was a little inclined to doubt
whether Madame Bonanni would abide by her resolution in the future,
though she was perfectly in earnest at present.
'I shall be at your first night,' said the prima donna, finishing her
operations at last, and carefully shutting her little gold box. 'If you
have a dress rehearsal, I'll be at that, too.' 'Thank you,' Margaret answered. 'Yes--there is to be a dress rehearsal
on Sunday. Schreiermeyer insists on it for me. He's afraid I shall have
stage fright because I'm so cool now, I suppose.' She laughed, contentedly and perfectly sure of herself.
'The only thing I don't like is being brought on in the sack to sing
that last scene.' 'Eh?' Madame Bonanni stared in surprise.
'The sack,' Margaret repeated. 'The last scene. Don't you know?' 'I know--but it's always left out. Nobody has sung that for years. It's
a chorus-girl who is brought on in the bag, and when Rigoletto sees her
face he screams and the curtain goes down. You don't mean to say that
Schreiermeyer wants you to do the whole scene?
'Yes. We've rehearsed it ever so often. I thought it was strange, too.
He says that if it does not please people at the dress rehearsal, we
can leave it out on the real night.' 'I never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life!' Madame Bonanni
was evidently displeased.
She had once done the 'sack' scene herself to satisfy the caprice of a
foreign sovereign who wished to see the effect of it, and she had a
vivid and disagreeable recollection of being half dragged, half
carried, inside a brown canvas bag, and then put down rather roughly;
and then, of not knowing at what part of the stage she was, while she
listened to Rigoletto s voice; and of the strong, dusty smell of the
canvas, that choked her, so that she wanted to cough and sneeze when
Rigoletto tore open the bag and let her head out; and then, of having
to sing in a very uncomfortable position; and, altogether, of a most
disagreeable quarter of an hour just at the very time when she should
have been getting her wig and paint off in her dressing-room. Moreover,
the scene was a failure, as it always has been wherever it has been
tried. She told Margaret this.