Set in Silver | Page 2

School breaks up to-morrow--breaks into little blond and brunette bits,
which will blow or drift off to their respective homes; and I should by
this time be packing to visit the Despards, where I'm supposed to teach
Mimi's young voice to soar, as compensation for holiday hospitality;
but--I'm not packing, because Ellaline Lethbridge has had an attack of
nerves.
You won't be surprised that I stopped two hours over-time to-day to
hold the hand and to stroke the hair of Ellaline. I've done that before,
when she had a pain in her finger, or a cold in her little nose, and sent
you a petit bleu to announce that I couldn't get home for dinner and our
happy hour together. No, you won't be surprised at my stopping--or that
Ellaline should have an attack of nerves. But the reason for the attack
and the cure she wants me to give her: these will surprise you.
Why, it's almost as hard to begin, after all, as if I hadn't been working

industriously up to it for three pages. But here goes!
Dearest, you've often said, and I've agreed with you (or else it was the
other way round), that nothing I could ever do for Ellaline Lethbridge
would be too much; that she couldn't ask any sacrifice of me which
would be too great. Of course, one does say these things until one is
tested. But--I wonder if there is a "but"?
Of course you believe that your one chick has a glorious voice, and that
it's a cruel shame she should be doing nothing better than teaching
other people's chicks to squall, whether their voices are worth squalling
with or not. Perhaps, though, mine mayn't be as remarkable an organ as
we think; and even if you hadn't made me give up trying for light opera,
because I received one Insult (with a capital I) while I was Madame
Larese's favourite pupil, I mightn't in any case have turned into a great
prima donna. I was rather excited and amused by the Insult myself--it
made me feel so interesting, and so like a heroine of romance; but you
didn't approve of it; and we had some hard times, hadn't we, after all
our money was spent in globe-trotting, and lessons for me from the
immortal Larese?
If it hadn't been for meeting Ellaline, and Ellaline falling a victim to my
modest charms, and insisting upon Madame de Maluet's taking me as a
teacher of singing for her "celebrated finishing school for Young
Ladies," what would have become of us, dearest, with you so delicate,
me so young, and both of us so poor and alone in a big world? I really
don't know, and you've often said you didn't.
Of course, if it hadn't been for Ellaline--Madame's richest and most
important girl--persisting as she did, in her imperious, spoiled-child
way, Madame wouldn't have dreamed of engaging a young girl like me,
without any experience as a teacher, no matter how much she liked my
voice and my (or rather Larese's) method. I suppose no one would else
have risked me; so I certainly do owe to Ellaline, and nobody but
Ellaline, three happy and (fairly) prosperous years. To be sure, because
of my position at Madame de Maluet's, I have got a few outside pupils;
but that's indirectly through Ellaline, too, isn't it?

I'm reminding you of all these things so that you may have it clearly
before your mind just how much we do owe Ellaline, and judge
whether the payment she now asks is too big or not.
That's the way she puts it, not coarsely or crudely; but I know how she
feels.
She sent me a little note yesterday, while I was giving a lesson, to say
she'd a horrid headache, had gone to bed, and would I come to her
room as soon as I could. Well, I went at lunch time, for I hated to keep
her waiting, and thought I could eat later. As it turned out, I didn't eat at
all. But that's a detail.
She had on a perfectly divine nighty, with low neck and short sleeves
(no girl would be allowed to wear such a thing in any but a French
school, I'm sure, even if she were a "parlour boarder") and her hair was
in curly waves over her shoulders. Altogether she looked adorable, and
about fourteen years old, instead of nearly nineteen, as she is.
"You don't show your headache a bit," said I.
"I haven't got one," said she.
Then she explained that she'd been dying for a chance to talk with me
alone, and the headache was the only thing that occurred to her in the
circumstances. She doesn't mind little fibs, you know. Indeed, I believe
she