The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Primadonna, by F. Marion Crawford

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Title: The Primadonna

Author: F. Marion Crawford

Release Date: December 23, 2003 [eBook #10521]
[Date last updated: January 1, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRIMADONNA***

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THE PRIMADONNA

A SEQUEL TO "FAIR MARGARET"

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "SANT' ILARIO," "FAIR MARGARET," ETC., ETC.

1908

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

When the accident happened, Cordova was singing the mad scene in
_Lucia_ for the last time in that season, and she had never sung it
better. _The Bride of Lammermoor_ is the greatest love-story ever
written, and it was nothing short of desecration to make a libretto
of it; but so far as the last act is concerned the opera certainly
conveys the impression that the heroine is a raving lunatic. Only a
crazy woman could express feeling in such an unusual way.

Cordova's face was nothing but a mask of powder, in which her handsome
brown eyes would have looked like two holes if she had not kept them
half shut under the heavily whitened lids; her hands were chalked too,
and they were like plaster casts of hands, cleverly jointed at the
wrists. She wore a garment which was supposed to be a nightdress,
which resembled a very expensive modern shroud, and which was
evidently put on over a good many other things. There was a deal of
lace on it, which fluttered when she made her hands shake to accompany
each trill, and all this really contributed to the general impression
of insanity. Possibly it was overdone; but if any one in the audience
had seen such a young person enter his or her room unexpectedly, and
uttering such unaccountable sounds, he or she would most assuredly
have rung for a doctor and a cab, and for a strait-jacket if such a
thing were to be had in the neighbourhood.

An elderly man, with very marked features and iron-grey hair, sat in
the fifth row of the stalls, on the right-hand aisle. He was a bony
man, an