sion.
Singers who grow thin lose their voices.'

'I never grew very fat,' said Madame De Rosa, in a tone of regret.

'Precisely, my darling,' answered Schreiermeyer. 'Therefore you
retired.'

Margaret was a little surprised that he should call her teacher 'my
darling,' and that the good lady should seem to think it quite natural,
but her reflections on obesity and the manners of theatrical people
were interrupted, though not by any means arrested for the night, by
the clattering sound of high-heeled shoes in the corridor. The act was
over, and Madame Bonanni was coming back from the stage. In a moment
she was in the doorway, and as she entered the room she unmasked a
third maid who followed her with a cloak.

She saw Margaret first, as the latter rose to meet her. Margaret felt
as if the world itself were putting huge arms round her and kissing her
on both cheeks. The embrace was of terrific power, and a certain amount
of grease paint came off.

'Little Miss Donne,' cried the prima donna, relaxing her hold on
Margaret's waist but instantly seizing her by the wrist and turning her
round sharply, like a dressmaker's doll on a pivot, 'that is
Schreiermeyer! The great Schreiermeyer! The terrible Schreiermeyer! You
see him before you, my child! Tremble! Every one trembles before
Schreiermeyer!'

The manager had risen, but was perfectly imperturbable and silent. He
did not even grunt. Madame Bonanni dropped Margaret's wrist and
shrugged her Juno-like shoulders.

'Schreiermeyer,' she said, as if she had forgotten all about Margaret,
'if that lime-light man plays the moon in my eyes again I shall come
out on the balcony with blue goggles. You shall hear the public then!
It is perfectly outrageous! I am probably blind for life!'

She winked her big painted eyelids vigorously as if trying whether she
could see at all. Margaret was looking at her, not sure that it was not
all a dream, and wondering how it was possible that such a face and
figure could still produce illusions of youth and grace when seen from
the other side of the footlights. Yet Margaret herself had felt the
illusion only a quarter of an hour ago. The paint on Madame Bonanni's
face was a thick mask of grease, pigments and powder; the wig was the
most evident wig that ever was; the figure seemed of gigantic girth
compared with the woman's height, though that was by no means small;
the eye lids were positively unwieldy with paint and the lashes looked
lik