I
had overheard.

No, one could not image Roger as the "husband of his wife." It simply
couldn't be supposed.

I had very little to say to him that night, myself. I felt clumsy and
tactless, somehow, and certain that what I might say would be too much
or too little.

It was Tip whose cheery, "How wonderfully fine she was, Roger! How
proud you must be of her!" saved the day and gave us a chance to shake
hands and leave them in the flower-filled coupe.

Well, after that it was all the same thing. Exercise, practice,
performance, success; then sleep, and exercise again, _da capo_.

She was a prima donna now, our little Margarita, a successful artist,
a public character. "Margarita Josepha," Madame had christened her,
for twenty years ago simple American surnames found no favour with the
impressario, and "_cette charmante Mme. Josepha_," "_artiste vraiment
ravissante_," etc., etc., the critics called her.

As _Juliet_ she looked her loveliest, as _Marguerite_ she acted her
best, as _Aida_ she sang most wonderfully. Indeed it was this last
that captured London and gave rise to the much exaggerated affair of
the Certain Royal Personage. She sang _Aida_ twelve times in one
season (going to London from Paris) and the boys whistled the airs
through the streets and the bands played from it whenever she rode in
the Park. I myself saw the diamond bracelet Miss Jencks returned to
the Duke of S---- (we did not tell Roger, by mutual consent, till much
later) and the Queen's pearl-set brooch when she sang at Windsor
marked at least one satisfying unanimity among members of the royal
family.

I took Mary, long afterward, to hear Mme. G----i in the part Margarita
made famous in London, and when the tears rolled down the child's face
as poor _Aida_ (that barbaric romanesque) dies in melody, portly
though starving, and unconvincingly pale, I wished she might have seen
her mother. There was a death! Nothing in _Aida's_ life could possibly
have become her like Margarita's leaving of it, I am sure.

Roger ceased to go after the first performances, and indeed he was
very busy, and crossed the ocean more than once in the American
interests of his French and English _clientele_. But whoever stopped
at home or went, whoever applauded or yawned, whoever approved of the
present status of the Bradley family or disapproved, one gaunt figure
never left Margarita's side from the moment she left her door till she
returned to it (except for th