“Well, you know,” said Lord Evelyn, “Lind has a great organization to control, and he must be a strict disciplinarian.  It is the object of his life; everything else is of minor importance.  Even you confess that you admire his tremendous power of work.”

“Yes, I do.  I admire his administrative capacity; it is wonderful.  But I don’t believe for a moment that it was his mind that projected this big scheme.  That must have been the work of an idealist, perhaps of a dozen of them, all adding and helping.  I think he almost said as much to me one night.  His business is to keep the machinery in working order, and he does it to perfection.”

“There is one thing about him:  he never forgets, and he never forgives.  You remember the story of Count Verdt?”

“I have cause to remember it.  I thought for a moment the wretch had committed suicide because I caught him cheating.”

“I have been told that Lind played with that fellow like a cat with a mouse.  Verdt got hints from time to time that his punishment as a traitor was overtaking him; and yet he was allowed to live on in constant fear.  And it was the Camorra, and not Lind, or any of Lind’s friends, who finished him after all.”

“Well, that was implacable enough, to be sure; to have death dogging the poor wretch’s heels, and yet refusing to strike.”

“For myself, I don’t pity him much,” said Lord Evelyn, as he rose and buttoned his coat.  “He was a fool to think he could play such a trick and escape the consequences.  Now, Brand, how am I to hear from you to-morrow?  You know I am in a measure responsible.”

“However it ends, I am grateful to you, Evelyn; you may be sure of that.  I will write to you from Wolverhampton, and let you know the worst, or the best.”

“The best, then:  we will have no worsts.”

He said good-bye, and went whistling cheerfully down the narrow oak staircase.  He at least was not very apprehensive about the results of the next day’s interview.

But how brief was this one day, with its rapidly passing opportunities; and then the stern necessity for departure and absence.  He spent half the night in devising how best he could get speech of her, in a roundabout fashion, without the dread of the interference of friends.  And at last he hit upon a plan which might not answer; but he could think of nothing else.

He went in the morning and secured a box at Covent Garden for that evening.  Then he called at Lisle Street, and got Calabressa’s address.  He found Calabressa in his lodgings, shivering and miserable, for the day was wet, misty, and cold.

“You can escape from the gloom of our climate, Signor Calabressa,” said he.  “What do you say to going to the opera to-night?”

“Your opera?” said he, with a gesture indicative of still deeper despair.  “You forget I come from the home, the nursery of opera.”

“Yes,” said Brand, good-naturedly.  “Great singers train in your country, but they sing here:  that is the difference.  Do not be afraid; you will not be disappointed.  See, I have brought you a box; and if you want companions, why not ask Miss Lind and Madame Potecki to go with you and show you the ways of our English opera-houses?”