The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1909-12-03
CHAPTER II.

papers on both sides of the Atlantic
in the news that the famous lyric So
prano Margarita da CordOva, whose
real name was Miss Margaret Dome,
was engaged to Mons. Konstantin
Logotheti, a Greek financier of large
fortune established in Paris, and al
most as well 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 weekend party at Craythew,
Lord Creedmores place in Derbyshire,
where they had apparently come to
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 nice
English girl, not much over "a years
of age, the orphan daughter Of an Ok
ford don who had married an Ameri-
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 ex-
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
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
tnn do bop no.
they quarreled, but Logotheti, who
was going to take her for better, for
worse, professed 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
err having refused him about a dozen
times.
She had loved another man as much
as she was capable of loving, and at
one time he had loved her, but 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 the
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
great singer was at all intimate was
the Countess Leven, Lord Creedmore'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
ndu OHly De6u tSldDllSueu Dy means
of his pocket-book, which somehow es-
capped destruction. So Lady Maud
was a childless widow of eight-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 Margarets
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.
$50 you're going to try It, my
dearl" said Lady Maud. when she
heard the news