r reached Los Angeles and his tearfully happy mother
he drew her into the library and closed the door. "Mater," he said with
an odd air of intense repressed excitement, "I'm going to show you
something, but you must promise me on your honor not to breathe it to a
living soul, least of all, Mrs. Lorimer."

"Oh, dearest," gasped his mother, "I promise faithfully----"

He took Honor's telegram out of his wallet and unfolded it and smoothed
it out for her to read the single word it contained. Then, at her glad
cry, "Sh ... Mater! It isn't--exactly--what you think. I can't explain
now. But it's a hope; it may--I believe it will, one day--lead to the
thing we both want!" He folded it again carefully into its creases and
put it back into his wallet and he was breathing hard.

CHAPTER IX

Ethel Bruce-Drummond was better than her word. She did not wait for the
Christmas holidays but went down to Florence early in December for
Honor's first concert, and she wrote many pages to Stephen Lorimer.

Of course you know by this time that the concert was a
success--you'll have had Honor's modest cable and the explosive and
expensive one from the fat lark! They are sending you translations
from the Italian papers, and clippings in English, and copies of
some of the notes she's had from the more important musical people,
and I really can't add anything to that side of it. You know, my
dear Stephen, when it comes to music I'm confessedly ignorant,--not
quite, perhaps, like that fabled countryman of mine who said he
could not tell whether the band were playing "God Save the Weasel"
or "Pop Goes the Queen," but bad enough in all truth. Therefore, I
keep cannily out of all discussion of Honor's voice. I gather,
however, that it has surprised every one, even the _Signorina_, and
that there is no doubt at all about her making a genuine success
if she wants to hew to the line. She has had, I hear, several
rather unusual offers already. But of course she hasn't the
faintest intention of doing anything in the world but the thing her
heart is set upon. It's rather pathetic, really. There's something
a little like Trilby about her; she does seem to be singing under
enchantment. What she really is like, though, is a lantern-jawed
young Botticelli Madonna. She's lost a goodish bit of flesh, I
should say, and her color's not so high, an