That was their attitude.

But this was not all.  There were the colleagues who came to see Margaret off and wished that they were going too.  In spite of the windy weather there was Signor Pompeo Stromboli, the tenor, as broad as any two ordinary men, in a fur coat of the most terribly expensive sort, bringing an enormous box of chocolates with his best wishes; and there was the great German dramatic barytone, Herr Tiefenbach, who sang ‘Amfortas’ better than any one, and was a true musician as well as a man of culture, and he brought Margaret a book which he insisted that she must read on the voyage, called The Genesis of the Tone Epos; and there was that excellent and useful little artist, Fraeulein Ottilie Braun, who never had an enemy in her life, who was always ready to sing any part creditably at a moment’s notice if one of the leading artists broke down, and who was altogether one of the best, kindest, and least conceited human beings that ever joined an opera company.  She brought her great colleague a little bunch of violets.

Least expected of them all, there was Schreiermeyer, with a basket of grape fruit in his tightly-gloved podgy hands; and he was smiling cheerfully, which was an event in itself.  They followed Margaret up to the promenade deck after her maids had gone below, and stood round her in a group, all talking at once in different languages.

Griggs chanced to be the only other passenger on that part of the deck and he joined the party, for he knew them all.  Margaret gave him her hand quietly and nodded to him.  Signor Stromboli was effusive in his greeting; Herr Tiefenbach gave him a solemn grip; little Fraeulein Ottilie smiled pleasantly, and Schreiermeyer put into his hands the basket he carried, judging that as he could not get anything else out of the literary man he could at least make him carry a parcel.

‘Grape fruit for Cordova,’ he observed.  ’You can give it to the steward, and tell him to keep the things in a cool place.’

Griggs took the basket with a slight smile, but Stromboli snatched it from him instantly, and managed at the same time to seize upon the book Herr Tiefenbach had brought without dropping his own big box of sweetmeats.

‘I shall give everything to the waiter!’ he cried with exuberant energy as he turned away.  ’He shall take care of Cordova with his conscience!  I tell you, I will frighten him!’

This was possible, and even probable.  Margaret looked after the broad figure.

‘Dear old Stromboli!’ she laughed.

‘He has the kindest heart in the world,’ said little Fraeulein Ottilie Braun.

‘He is no a musician,’ observed Herr Tiefenbach; ’but he does not sing out of tune.’

‘He is a lunatic,’ said Schreiermeyer gravely.  ’All tenors are lunatics—­except about money,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘I think Stromboli is very sensible,’ said Margaret, turning to Griggs.  ’He brings his little Calabrian wife and her baby out with him, and they take a small house for the winter and Italian servants, and live just as if they were in their own country and see only their Italian friends—­instead of being utterly wretched in a horrible hotel.’