terested in hearing for the
first time a voice so fresh and pure and so perfectly trained; but when
she had finished the manager merely said,

"Thank you, that will do; I needn't trouble you further." Then, after a
word or two, partly aside, with Mr. Carey, he turned to Lionel and
abruptly asked what salary she wanted--just as if Lionel had brought him
some automaton and made it work.

"I think you ought to give her a very good salary," the young man said,
in an undertone; "she has studied under Pandiani at Naples. And if I
were you I wouldn't ask her to sing in the chorus at all; I would rather
keep a voice like that fresh and unworked until she is fit to take a
part."

"Singing in the chorus won't hurt her," said he, briefly, "for a while,
at least, and she'll become familiar with the stage."

But here Lionel drew the manager still further aside; and then ensued a
conversation which neither Nina nor Mr. Carey could in the least
overhear. At the end of it Mr. Lehmann nodded acquiescence, and said,
"Very well, then;" and straightway he departed, for he was a busy man,
and had little time to waste on the smaller courtesies of
life--especially in the case of _debutantes_.

Lionel returned to the young lady whose fate had just been decided.

"That's all right, Nina," he said. "You are engaged as under-study to
Mlle. Girond, and you'll have three pounds a week as soon as you have
studied her business and are ready to take the part when you're wanted.
I will find you a full score, and you may get up some of the other
music, when you've nothing better to do. The rehearsals of the
under-studies begin on Monday--but I'll see you before then and let you
know all about it. You won't mind my running away?--I'm on in the first
scene. There is Mrs. Grey waiting for you--you must go and get something
to eat--and when you come back, call at the stage-door, and you'll find
an envelope waiting for you, with two places in it--the dress circle, if
it can be managed, for I want you to be some distance away from the
orchestra. Good-bye, Nina!"

She held his hand for a moment.

"Leo, I thank you," she said, regarding him with her dark eyes; and then
he smiled and waved another farewell to her as he disappeared; and she
was left to make her way with her patient chaperon out of this great,
hollow, portentous building, that was now resounding with mysterious
clankings and calls.

And it was from a couple of seats in the back of the d