“How should one know?” she asked, scornfully.  “There are not two such voices as his in Italy.  He sang.”

“He sang?” cried Nino, with an affectation of alarm.  “I must tell the maestro not to let him sing in the open air; he will lose his voice.”

“Who is his master?” asked Hedwig, suddenly.

“I cannot remember the name just now,” said Nino, looking away.  “But I will find out, if you wish.”  He was afraid of putting De Pretis to any inconvenience by saying that the young singer was his pupil.  “However,” he continued, “you will hear him sing as often as you please, after he makes his debut next month.”  He sighed when he thought that it would all so soon be over.  For how could he disguise himself any longer, when he should be singing in public every night?  But Hedwig clapped her hands.

“So soon?” she cried.  “Then there will be an end of the mystery.”

“Yes,” said Nino, gravely “there will be an end of the mystery.”

“At least you can tell me his name, now that we shall all know it.”

“Oh, his name—­his name is Cardegna, like mine.  He is my cousin, you know.”  And they went on with the lesson.  But something of the kind occurred almost every time he came, so that he felt quite sure that, however indifferent he might be in her eyes, the singer, the Nino of whom she knew nothing, interested her deeply.

Meanwhile he was obliged to go very often to the baroness’ scented boudoir, which smelled of incense and other Eastern perfumes, whenever it did not smell of cigarettes; and there he sang little songs, and submitted patiently to her demands for more and more music.  She would sit by the piano and watch him as he sang, wondering whether he were handsome or ugly, with his square face and broad throat and the black circles round his eyes.  He had a fascination for her, as being something utterly new to her.

One day she stood and looked over the music as he sang, almost touching him, and his hair was so curly and soft to look at that she was seized with a desire to stroke it, as Mariuccia strokes the old gray cat for hours together.  The action was quite involuntary, and her fingers rested only a moment on his head.

“It is so curly,” she said, half playfully, half apologetically.  But Nino started as though he had been stung, and his dark face grew pale.  A girl could not have seemed more hurt at a strange man’s touch.

“Signora!” he cried, springing to his feet.  The baroness, who is as dark as he, blushed almost red, partly because she was angry, and partly because she was ashamed.

“What a boy you are!” she said, carelessly enough, and turned away to the window, pushing back one heavy curtain with her delicate hand, as if she would look out.

“Pardon me, signora, I am not a boy,” said Nino, speaking to the back of her head as he stood behind her.  “It is time we understood each other better.  I love like a man and I hate like a man.  I love someone very, much.”