She looked deep into his eyes. Will quailed, and felt his heart stand still within him. “There are difficulties in the way, my child,” he answered, deliberating. “You’re more or less bound to the Harmony, I think; and I’m more or less bound to the Duke of Edinburgh’s. And then, there’s Herr Hausberger to consider as well. Even if _we_ could arrange things with our respective managers, do you think he’d be likely to fall in with our arrangements?” Linnet seized his arm impulsively. With these warm southern natures, such acts are natural, and mean less than with us northerners. “Oh, do try, dear Herr Will!” she exclaimed, bending forward in earnest entreaty. “Do try if we can’t manage it. Never mind about Andreas. I’m sure he would consent, if he saw it was a good piece, and I could sing in it with spirit. And I would sing in it—_ach, lieber Gott_,—how well I would sing in it! You would see what I could do, then! It would be splendid, splendid!” “But I’m afraid Willdon Blades——” Linnet cut him short impatiently, jerking her little curled forefinger with a contemptuous gesture. “What matter about Willdon Blades!” she cried. “We can easily settle _him_. If you and I decide to work this play together, the manager _must_ give in: we can arrange it somehow.” And she looked at him with more conscious dignity and beauty than usual; for, simple peasant-girl as she was, and a child still at heart, she knew by this time she was also a queen of the opera. How the _gommeux_ had crowded her _salon_ in her Paris hotel; how great ladies had fought for stalls at her triumphant _première_! “I might think about it,” Will answered, after a brief pause, half-alarmed at her eagerness. Was it not too dangerous? But Linnet, quite sure in her own soul she was urging him from purely artistic motives, had no such scruples. “Do try,” she cried, laying her hand impulsively on his arm once more. “Now, promise me you’ll try! Begin to-day! I should love to see what sort of a part you’d write for me.”