If the Lady Livia would deign to receive Mr. Court/nay for a few moments he would count that the most distinguished honour of his passage through Italy.
On his ten-mile ride back from Pontassieve earlier in the day Roger had given his whole mind to. the problem of how he might most easily gain swift; access to Donna Livia, and the note he had just written was the result of hip cogitations. He thought it very unlikely that the prima donna would refuse to receive a director of the London Opera, and that even if the Grand Duke were already with her she would ask his permission to have-such a visitor sent up.
All the same, he was by no means happy about the identity he had decided to assume. For one thing, while it was. not uncommon j for men of his age to be Members of Parliament or hold field-officer's rank in the Army, he greatly doubted if anyone as young as himself had ever been the director of a Royal Opera Company. For another, although like every educated person of his time he spent a fair portion of his leisure listening to music, it had never been a passion with him, and he knew practically nothing of its technicalities. If he found Donna Livia alone that would not matter, but if circumstances compelled him to put up a bluff that he was conversant with the works of all the leading composers, it might prove extremely awkward. But, with his usual optimism, he thrust such misgivings into the back of his mind, had a carozza summoned, and drove in it to Donna Livia's house.
As he knew that one of the fashionable recreations of Florentine ladies was holding conversazioni, he thought it quite possible that he would find her so engaged. But, on enquiring, he learned that she was not receiving, so he gave his note and a silver ducat to the footman who had answered the door to him.
For a few minutes he waited in a hall floored with chequered squares of black and white marble; then the footman returned and ushered him through a pair of fine wrought-iron gates, beyond which were heavily brocaded curtains, into a spacious salon.
There were five people in it, but there was no mistaking which one of them was Donna Livia. She was reclining on a lion-headed day-bed in a loose white robe with a silver, key pattern border, and in the first glance Roger decided that he had rarely seen a more beautiful woman. Evidently she was proud of her luxuriant Titian hair, as she wore it unpowdered. Her cheeks and jowl were just a shade on the heavy side, but her green eyes were magnificent, her forehead broad, her nose straight, her mouth a full-lipped cupid's bow and her teeth, as she smiled a welcome at him, two perfectly even rows of dazzling whiteness.
Her companions were two middle-aged ladies of aristocratic mien, a very old one who sat dozing in a rocking-chair in a far corner of the room, and an elderly cherub-faced man. The latter was holding Roger's note and immediately addressed him in indifferent English.
"The Lady Livia say verri much pleasure you come, sir. But she no speek Inglish. She have only Italian an' German. You speek some per'aps ?"
Roger was much relieved, as he spoke fairly fluent German; and, having kissed the plump hand that Donna Livia extended to him, he thanked her in that language for receiving him.
She then introduced the two ladies, whom he gathered were both Marchesas, although he did not catch their names, and the plump man as Signor Babaroni, master of the Grand Duke's ballet. The old woman she ignored. Having made his bows, Roger was given a chair and, as he had feared would be the case if he found Donna Livia with company, the conversation at once turned to opera.
Fortunately for him, Signor Babaroni spoke no German and only one of the ladies understood it; the other spoke some English, and asked him if he talked French; but he promptly denied all knowledge of it, so was able to confine himself to two languages and thus be open to his remarks being challenged by no more than two of them at one time.
On Donna Livia asking him what operas were now being performed in London, he said that at the time of his leaving they were giving Bianchi's La VillaneUa Rapita; as it so happened that he had taken Isabella to see that piece while they were in Marseilles.
She then enquired his opinion of Bianchi and he replied that he considered La Villanella Rapita by no means that composer's best work.
It was a shot in the dark and, apparently, not a very good one, as Donna Livia gave him a slightly surprised look. Moreover, it immediately produced the question: "Then to which of his operas, Miester Courtnay, would you give the palm?"
This completely bowled him out, as before his visit to Marseilles he had never head of the composer. But for the moment he saved himself from exposure by his wits; although he flushed to the eyebrows as he said: "To whichever one you might lift from the rut by singing in it, gracious lady. . . ."
Pleased by the compliment she smilingly repeated it to her friends in Italian. Then she asked him where he had heard her sing, and in what part
This was infinitely worse than anything he had expected, and he had all he could do to hide his dismay; but he punted for Milan, that being the safest bet he could think of, and for Scarlatti's Telemaco as a classic in which she must have played on many occasions.
Again he seemed to have saved his bacon, as she did not declare that he could never have done so; but remarked that he must have travelled in Italy when he was scarcely more than a boy, as His Highness had not allowed her to leave Tuscany since her first season in Florence.
To that he promptly replied: "My lady; people are often deceived at a first meeting by my youthful appearance; but I vow that I could give you two years for every year you are over twenty."
As it seemed impossible that he could be anywhere near thirty the remark inferred that she could hardly be more than twenty-four, and as in fact she was twenty-eight, he had succeeded in paying her another pretty compliment.
Acutely anxious now to avoid further questions on the subject of music, he hardly gave her time to smile before rushing into a panegyric on the beauties of Florence and its art treasures.
Here he was on safer ground, but after he had been speaking with glowing enthusiasm for a few moments on the masterpieces in the Pitti, she said:
"But I thought, Miester Courtnay, that you were only passing through Florence? You speak as though you had been here several days, and if that is so, I take it ill of you that you should have waited almost till the moment of your departure before coming to see me."
Hastily he bridged the pitfall he had inadvertently dug for himself, by assuring her that his sight-seeing had been limited to a few hours during that afternoon. But the statement cut the safe ground from under his feet; as, after it, he dared not develop the conversation as he had intended, by talking of the Duomo, the Badia, the house in which Bianca Capella had lived,, and other places of interest in the city.
Signor Babaroni seized Roger's pause to say in his halting English that as a young man he had visited London and heard the great Francesca de l'Epine sing at Drury Lane.
Roger showed suitable awe although he had never heard of this long-dead prima donna. The ballet master then revealed that his father had done much to ease the last years of her equally famous English rival, Mrs. Katherine Tofts, who had eventually gone mad and died in Venice. As he translated his remarks for the benefit of the ladies the conversation was soon back to opera and the individual triumphs of great artists past and present.