BOOK III
"Sirenum Pocula"
CHAPTER I
"Diva Potens"
Quinto Lalli was the name by which the prima donna had presented the
old gentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the Marchese
Lamberto as her father. And Quinto Lalli was his real name; but he
was not really her father. Nor had she any legitimate claim to the
name of Lalli. She had never been known by any other, however,
during the whole of her theatrical career; and there were very few
persons in any of the many cities where the Lalli was famous, who
had any idea that the old man who always accompanied her was not her
father. Indeed, Bianca had so long been accustomed to call and to
consider him as such, that she often well nigh forgot herself that
he held no such relationship to her.
The real facts of the case were very simple, and had nothing
romantic about them. Old Lalli was a man of great musical gifts and
knowledge. He had been a singing-master in his day; an impresario
too for a short time; and sometimes a kind of broker, or middle-man
between singers in want of an engagement and managers seeking for
"available talent;" and a hunter-up of talent not yet available, but
which, it might be hoped, would one day become such.
It was in the pursuit of his avocations of this latter sort, that he
had one day, about fifteen years before the date of the
circumstances narrated in the last chapter, chanced to meet with a
little girl, then some twelve years old, on the hopes of whose
future success he had resolved to build his own fortunes.
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