l to appear according to contract. You think because you have
money in your throat somebody will pay me my damages if you go to
somebody else. You don't know the law, my lady! I can get an injunction
to prevent you from singing anywhere in Europe, pending suit. The other
man will have to pay me before you can open your beautiful mouth to let
the money out! Just remember that! You take my advice. You be an artist
first and a lady afterwards when you have plenty of time, and you stick
to old Schreiermeyer, and he'll stick to you. No nonsense, now, no
stupid stuff! Eh?'

'I haven't the slightest idea what you are driving at,' said Margaret.
'I have made an agreement with you, and unless I lose my voice during
the next month I shall sing wherever you expect me to.'

'All right, because if you don't, I'll make you dance from here to
Jerusalem,' answered Schreiermeyer, glaring again.

'Do you know that you are quite the rudest and most brutal person I
ever met?' inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows.

But Schreiermeyer now smiled in the most pleasant manner possible,
ceased glaring, spread out his palms and put his head on one side as he
answered her, apparently much pleased by her estimate of him.

'Ah, you are not phlegmatic, like Logotheti! We shall be good friends.
I shall be rude to you when I am in a rage, and tell you the truth, and
you shall call me many bad names. Then we shall be perfectly good
friends. You will say, "Bah! it is only old Schreiermeyer!" and I shall
say, "Pshaw! Cordova may call me a brute, but she is the greatest
soprano in the world, what does it matter?" Do you see? We are going to
be good friends!'

It was impossible not to laugh at his way of putting it; impossible,
too, not to feel that behind his strange manner, his brutal speeches
and his serio-comic rage there was the character of a man who would
keep his word and who expected others to do the same. There might even
be lurking somewhere in him a streak of generosity.

'Good friends?' he repeated, with an interrogation.

'Yes, good friends,' Margaret answered, taking his hand frankly and
still smiling.

'I like you,' said Schreiermeyer, looking at her with sudden
thoughtfulness, as if he had just discovered something.

And then without a word he turned on his heel and disappeared as
quickly as he had come, his head sinking between his shoulders till the
collar of the snuff-coloured overcoat he wore in spite of the warm
weather w