"Good Lord!" he ejaculated.
He seized the photograph excitedly, scattering the green stones. She!
The Calabrian, the enchanting colouratura who had vanished from the
world at the height of her fame, thirty-odd years gone! Two-Hawks!
Cutty saw himself at twenty, in the pit at La Scala, with music-mad
Milan all about him. Two-Hawks! He remembered now. The nickname the
young bloods had given her because she had been eternally guarded by her
mother and aunt, fierce-beaked Calabrians, who had determined that Rosa
should never throw herself away on some beggarly Adonis.
And this chap was her son! Yesterday, rich and powerful, with a name
that was open sesame wherever he went; to-day, hunted, penniless, and
forlorn. Cutty sank back in his chair, stunned by the revelation. In
that room yonder!