In the afternoon she was alone with Lushington again. He was not at all
in an aggressive mood; indeed, he seemed rather depressed. They walked
slowly under the oaks and elms.
'What is the matter?' Margaret asked gently, after a silence.
'I have been thinking a great deal about you,' he answered.
'The thought seems to make you sad!' Margaret laughed, for she was very
happy.
'Yes. It does,' he answered, with a sigh that certainly was not
affected.
'But why?' she asked, growing grave at once.
'There is no reason why I should not tell you. After all, we know each
other too well to apologise for saying what we think. Don't we?' 'I hope so,' Margaret answered, wondering what he was going to say.
'But then,' said Lushington disconsolately, 'I am perfectly sure that
nothing I can say can have the slightest effect.' 'Who knows?' The young girl's lids drooped a little and then opened
again.
'You know.' He spoke gravely and with regret.
She tried to laugh.
'I wish I did! But what is it? There can be no harm in saying it!' 'You have made up your mind to be an opera-singer,' Lushington
answered. 'You have a beautiful voice, you have talent, you have been
well taught. You will succeed.' He had never said as much as that about her singing, and she was
pleased. After many months of patient work, the acknowledgment of it
seemed to be all coming in one day.
'You talk as if you were quite sure.' 'Yes. You will succeed. But there is another side to it. Shall you
think me priggish and call me disagreeable if I tell you that it is no
life for a woman brought up like you?' Margaret had just acquired some insight into the existence of the class
she meant to join, though by no means into the worst phase of it. She
was sure that if she closed her eyes she should see Madame Bonanni
vividly before her, and hear her talking to Logotheti, and smell the
heavy air of the big room. She felt that she could not call Lushington
a prig.
'I think I know what you mean,' she answered. 'But surely, an artist
can lead her own life, especially if she is successful.' 'No,' Lushington answered, 'she cannot. That's just it.' 'How do you know?' Margaret asked, incredulously.
'I do know,' he said with emphasis. 'I assure you that I know. I have
seen a great deal of operatic people. A few, and they are not generally
the great ones, try to lead their own lives, as you put it, but they
either don't succeed at all or else they make themselves so
disagreeable to their fellow artists that life becomes a burden.' 'If they don't succeed, it's because they have no strength of
character,' Margaret answered, 'and if they make themselves
disagreeable, it's because they have no tact!' 'That settles it!' Lushington laughed drily. 'I had better not say
anything more.' 'I did not mean to cut you short. I beg your pardon. Please go on,
please!' She turned to him as she said the last words, and there was in the word
'please' that one tone of hers which he could never resist. It is said
that even lifeless things, like bridges and towers, are subject by
nature to the vibration of a sympathetic note, and that the greatest
buildings in the world would tremble, and shake, and rock and fall in
ruins if that single musical sound were steadily produced near to them.
We men cannot pretend to be harder of hearing and feeling than stocks
and stones. The woman who loves, whether she herself knows it or not,
has her call, that we answer as the wood-bird answers his mate, her
sympathetic word and note at which we vibrate to our heart's core.