The Tupelo journal., 1909-12-03
CRAWFORD
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MzMyz n . : y M a.szs5z, 0U53

in the news that the famous lyric so
prano, Margarita da Cordova, whose
real name was Miss Margaret Dome,
"a engaged to Mons. KOnstantin
Logotheti, a Greek financier of large
most as we'll known to art collectors
as to needy governments, would-be
promoters, and mothers of marriage
able daughters.
The engagement was made known
during the height of the London sea
son, not long after they had both been
at a weekend party at C~raythew,
Lord Creedmore's place in Derbyshire,
where they had apparently come to a
final understanding after knowing
each other more than two years. Mar
garet was engaged to sing at Covent
Garden that summer, and the first
mention of the match was coupled
with the information that she intended
to cancel all her engagements and
never appear in public again. The re-
suit was that the next time she came
down the stage to sing the Waltz
Song in Romeo and Juliet" she re-
ceived a tremendous ovation before
she opened her handsome lips, and
another when she had finished the
air; and she spent one of the happiest
evenings she remembered.
Though she was at heart a nice
English girl, not much over "a years
of age, the orphan daughter of an Ok
ford dnv, uh0 h0d nnorrioI on Anori-
can, she had developed, Or fallen, to
the point at which very popular and
successful artists cannot live at all
without applause, and are not happy
unless they receive a certain amount
of adulation. Even the envy they e.
cite in their rivals is delicious, if not
almost necessary to them.
Margaret's real nature had not been
changed by a success that had been
altogether phenomenal and had prob
ably not been approached by any
soprano since Nine. Bonanni; but a
second nature had grown upon it and
threatened to hide it from all but
those who knew her very well indeed.
The inward Margaret was honest and
brave, rather sensitive, and still gener-
Gus; the outward woman, the prima
donna whom most people saw, was
self-possessed to a fault, imperious
when contradicted, and coolly ruthless
when her artistic fame was at stake.
The two natures did not agree we'll
together, and made her wretched when
they q%uarreled, but Logotheti, who
was going to take her for better, for
worse, p~rofessed to like them both,
and was the only man she had ever
known who did. That was one reason
why she was going to marry him, aft
er having refused him about a dozen
times.
She had loved another man as much
as she Vas capable of loving, and at
n time he had loved her, but a mis-
understanding and her devotion to her
art had temporarily separated them;
and later, when she had almost told
him that she would have him if he
asked her, he had answered her quite
frankly that she was no longer the
girl he had cared for, and he had sud-
denly disappeared from her life alto
gether. So Logotheti, brilliant, very
rich, gifted, gay, and rather exotic in
appearance and manner, but tenaci-
GUS as a bloodhound, had won tho
prize after a struggle that had lasted
two years. She had accepted him
without much enthusiasm at the last,
and without any great show of feel
ing.
Lets try it," she had said, and he
had been more than satisfied.
After a time, therefore, they told
their friends that they were going to
try it."
The only woman with whom the
the Countess Leven, Lord C~reedmore's
daughter, generally called Lady
Maud" whose husband had been in
the diplomacy, and, after vainly try
ing to divorce her, had been killed in
st. Petersburg by a bomb meant for
a minister. The explosion had been
so terrific that the dead mans identity
had only been established by means
of his pocket-book, which somehow es-
capped destruction. So Lady Maud
was a childless widow of e~ight-and-
twenty. Her father, when he HAD no
prospect of ever succeeding to the
title, had been a successful barrister,
and then a Woodworking member of
parliament, and he had been from boy
hood the close friend of Margaret's
father. Hence the intimacy that grew
up quickly between the two women
when they at last met, though they
had not known each other as children,
because the lawyer had lived in town
and his friend in Oxford.
so you're going to try it, my
Gaar!" said Lady Maud, when she
heard the news.
She had a sweet low voice, and
when she spoke now it vas a little
sad; for she had tried it" and it had
failed miserably. But she knew that
the trial had not been a fair one: the
only man she had ever cared for had
been killed in South Africa, and as
she had not even the excuse of having
been engaged to him, she had married
with Indifference the first handsome
man with a good name and a fair for
tune who offered himself. He CHANGED
to be a Russian diplomatist, and he
turned out a spendthrift and an I'M
faithful husband. She was too kind
hearted to be glad that he had been
blown to atoms by dynamite, but she
was much too natural not to enjoy the
liberty restored to her by his destruc-