Madame Bonanni, so absolutely
different from the paralysing shyness, the visible fright and the
pitiful helplessness at the moment of trial, which he had more than
once seen in young girls who came to Madame Bonanni for advice. They
had good voices, too, those poor trembling candidates; many of them had
talent of a certain order; but it was not the real thing, there was not
the real strength behind it, there was not the absolute self-reliance
to steady it; above all, there was not the tremendous physical
organisation which every great singer possesses.

But Margaret had all that; in other words, she had every gift that
makes a first-rate professional on the stage, and as the life became
familiar to her, those gifts, suddenly called into play, exerted their
influence directly upon her character and manner. She was born to be a
professional artist, to face the public and make it applaud her, to
believe in her own talent, to help herself, to trust to her nerves and
to defend herself with cool courage in moments of danger.

This was assuredly not the girl with whom Logotheti had fallen in love
at first sight, whom he, as well as Lushington, had believed far too
refined and delicately brought up to be happy in the surroundings of a
stage life, and much too sensitive to bear such familiarity as being
addressed as 'Cordova,' without any prefix, by an Italian tenor singer
whose father had kept a butcher's shop in Turin.

No doubt, the refinement, the sensitiveness, the delicacy of manner
were all there still, for such things do not disappear out of a woman
in a few days; but they belonged chiefly to one side of a nature that
had two very distinct sides. There was the 'lady' side, and there was
the 'actress' side; and unfortunately, thought Logotheti, there was now
no longer the slightest doubt as to which was the stronger. Margaret
Donne was already a memory; the reality was 'Cordova,' who was going to
have a fabulous success and would soon be one of the most successful
lyric sopranos of her time.

'Cordova' was a splendid creature, she was a good girl, she had a
hundred fine qualities not always found together in a great prima
donna; but no power in the world could ever make her Margaret Donne
again.

Logotheti watched her and once or twice he sighed; for he knew that he
no longer wished to marry her. It is not in the nature of Orientals to
let their wives exhibit themselves to the public, and in most ways the
prejudices