“I picked most of it up when I was a boy.  My grandfather was an Irish sailor with such a tremendous voice that a Neapolitan music master brought him out in opera as a buffo.  When he had roared his voice away, he went into the chorus.  My father was reared in Italy, and looked more Italian than most genuine natives.  He had no voice; so he became first accompanist, then chorus master, and finally trainer for the operatic stage.  He speculated in an American tour; married out there; lost all his money; and came over to England, when I was only twelve, to resume his business at Covent Garden.  I stayed in America, and was apprenticed to an electrical engineer.  I worked at the bench there for six years.”

“I suppose your father taught you to sing.”

“No.  He never gave me a lesson.  The fact is, Miss Lind, he was a capital man to teach stage tricks and traditional renderings of old operas; but only the exceptionally powerful voices survived his method of teaching.  He would have finished my career as a singer in two months if he had troubled himself to teach me.  Never go to Italy to learn singing.”

“I fear you are a cynic.  You ought either to believe in your father or else be silent about him.”

“Why?”

“Why!  Surely we should hide the failings of those we love?  I can understand now how your musical and electrical tastes became mixed up; but you should not confuse your duties.  But please excuse me:”  (Conolly’s eyes had opened a little wider) “I am lecturing you, without the least right to.  It is a failing of mine which you must not mind.”

“Not at all.  Youve a right to your opinion.  But the world would never get on if every practical man were to stand by his father’s mistakes.  However, I brought it on myself by telling you a long story.  This is the first opportunity I ever had of talking about myself to a lady, and I suppose I have abused it.”

Marian laughed.  “We had better stop apologizing to one another,” she said.  “What about the accompaniments to our next songs?”

Meanwhile Marmaduke and Miss McQuinch were becoming curious about Marian and Conolly.

“I say, Nelly,” he whispered, “Marian and that young man seem to be getting on uncommonly well together.  She looks sentimentally happy, and he seems pleased with himself.  Dont you feel jealous?”

“Jealous!  Why should I be?”

“Out of pure cussedness.  Not that you care for the electric man, but because you hate any one to fall in love with any one else when you are by.”

“I wish you would go away.”

“Why?  Dont you like me?”

“I loathe you.  Now, perhaps you understand me.”

“That’s a nice sort of thing to say to a fellow,” said Marmaduke, roused.  “I have a great mind to bring you to your senses as Douglas does, by not speaking to you for a week.”

“I wish you would let me come to my senses by not speaking to me at all.”