ng to distinguish her from
other female passengers, except her good looks and her well-set-up
figure. Yet somehow it seems impossible for a successful primadonna
ever to escape notice. Instead of one maid, for instance, Cordova had
two, and they carried rather worn leathern boxes that were evidently
heavy jewel-cases, which they clutched with both hands and refused to
give up to the stewards. They also had about them the indescribable
air of rather aggressive assurance which belongs especially to
highly-paid servants, men and women. Their looks said to every one:
'We are the show and you are the public, so don't stand in the way,
for if you do the performance cannot go on!' They gave their orders
about their mistress's things to the chief steward as if he were
nothing better than a railway porter or a call-boy at the theatre;
and, strange to say, that exalted capitalist obeyed with a docility he
would certainly not have shown to any other passenger less than royal.
They knew their way everywhere, they knew exactly what the best of
everything was, and they made it clear that the great singer would
have nothing less than the very, very best. She had the best cabin
already, and she was to have the best seat at table, the best steward
and the best stewardess, and her deck-chair was to be always in the
best place on the upper promenade deck; and there was to be no mistake
about it; and if anybody questioned the right of Margarita da Cordova,
the great lyric soprano, to absolute precedence during the whole
voyage, from start to finish, her two maids would know the reason why,
and make the captain and all the ship's company wish they were dead.

That was their attitude.

But this was not all. There were the colleagues who came to see
Margaret off and wished that they were going too. In spite of the
windy weather there was Signor Pompeo Stromboli, the tenor, as broad
as any two ordinary men, in a fur coat of the most terribly expensive
sort, bringing an enormous box of chocolates with his best wishes; and
there was the great German dramatic barytone, Herr Tiefenbach, who
sang 'Amfortas' better than any one, and was a true musician as well
as a man of culture, and he brought Margaret a book which he insisted
that she must read on the voyage, called _The Genesis of the Tone
Epos_; and there was that excellent and useful little artist, Fraeulein
Ottilie Braun, who never had an enemy in her life, who was always
ready to sing any