into the doomed CANTATRICE occupying days and nights under pressure for
immediate payment; the silencing of friend Debit, ridiculously calling
himself Credit, in contempt of sex and conduct, on the ground, that he
was he solely by virtue of being she. He had got a trick of singing
operatic solos in the form and style of the delightful tenor Tellio, and
they were touching in absurdity, most real in unreality. Exquisitely
trilled, after Tellio's manner,

'The tradesmen all beseech ye,
The landlord, cook and maid,
Complete THE CANTATRICE,
That they may soon be paid.'

provoked her to laughter in pathos. He approached, posturing himself
operatically, with perpetual new verses, rhymes to Danvers, rhymes to
Madame Sybille, the cook. Seeing Tellio at one of Henry Wilmers' private
concerts, Diana's lips twitched to dimples at the likeness her familiar
had assumed. She had to compose her countenance to talk to him;
but the moment of song was the trial. Lady Singleby sat beside her,
and remarked:

'You have always fun going on in you!' She partook of the general
impression that Diana Warwick was too humorous to nurse a downright
passion.

Before leaving, she engaged Diana to her annual garden-party of the
closing season, and there the meeting with Percy occurred, not
unobserved. Had they been overheard, very little to implicate them
would have been gathered. He walked in full view across the lawn
to her, and they presented mask to mask.