from this
responsibility by telling a white lie or two and persuading her to go
back to Naples--that thought never even occurred to him. To shake off
his old comrade Nina? He certainly would have preferred, for many
reasons, that she should have taken to concert-room business; but if she
were relying on him for an introduction to the lyric stage, why, he was
bound to help her in every possible way. "You know you've got an
excellent voice," he continued. "And a very little stage training would
fit you for a small part in comedy-opera, if that is what you're
thinking of, as a beginning. But I don't know that you would like it,
Nina. You see, you would have to become under-study for the lady who has
the part at present; and they'd probably want you to sing in the chorus;
and you'd get a very small salary--at first, you know, until you were
qualified to take one of the more important parts--and then you might
get into a travelling company--"

"A small part?" said she, with much cheerfulness. "Oh, yes; why not? I
must learn."

"But I don't know that you would like it," he said, still ruefully. "You
see, Nina, you might have to dress in the same room with two or three of
the chorus-girls--"

"And then?" she said, with a little dramatic gesture, and an elevation
of her beautifully formed black eyebrows. "Leo, you never saw my
lodgings with the family Debernardi--you have only mount the stairs--"

"My goodness, Nina, I could guess what the inside of the rooms was like,
if they were anything like those interminable and horrid stairs!" he
exclaimed, with a laugh. "And you who were always so fond of pretty
things, and flowers, and always so particular when we went to a
restaurant--to live with the Debernardis!"

"Ah, Leo, you imagine not why?" she said, also laughing, and when she
laughed her milk-white teeth shone merrily. "Old Pietro Debernardi he
lives in England some years; he speaks English, perhaps not very well,
but he speaks; then he teach me as he knows; and when it is possible I
go on the _Risposta_ and sail over to Capri, and all the way, and all
the return, I listen, and listen, and listen to the English people; and
I remember, and I practise alone in my own room, and I say, 'Leo, he
must not ridicule me, when I go to England.'"

"Ridicule you!" said he, indignantly. "I wish I could speak Italian as
freely as you speak English, Nina!"

"Oh, you speak Italian very well," said she. "But why you speak still
the