Then Lord Castlewell turned to Rachel, and asked her whether her suspicions would go so far as to interfere between him and her father. "It is because I am a pretty girl that you are going to do it," she said, frowning, "or because you pretend to think so." Here the father broke out into a laugh, and the lord followed him. "You had better keep your money to yourself, my lord. You never can have used it with less chance of getting any return." This interview, however, was ended by the acceptance of a cheque from Lord Castlewell for L200, payable to the order of Gerald O'Mahony. CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT WAS NOT DONE WITH THE FUNDS. "She has taken his money all the same." This was said some weeks after the transaction as described in the last chapter, and was spoken by Madame Socani to Mr. Moss. "How do you know?" "I know very well. You are so infatuated by that young woman that you will believe nothing against her." "I am infatuated with her voice; I know what she is going to do in the world. Old Barytone told me that he had never heard such a voice from a woman's mouth since the days of Malibran; and if there is a man who knows one voice from another, it is Barytone. He can taste the richness of the instrument down to its lowest tinkling sound." "And you would marry such a one as she for her voice." "And she can act. Ah! if you could have acted as she does, it might have been different." "She has got a husband just the same as me." "I don't believe it; but never mind, I would risk all that. And I will do it yet. If you will only keep your toe in your pump, we will have such a company as nothing that Le Gros can do will be able to cut us down." "And she is taking money from that lord." "They all take money from lords," he replied. "What does it matter? And she is as stout a piece of goods as ever you came across. She has given me more impudence in the last eight months than ever I took from any of them. And by Jupiter I never so much as got a kiss from her." "A kiss!" said Madame Socani with great contempt. "And she has hit me a box on the cheek which I have had to put up with. She has always got a dagger about her somewhere, to give a fellow a prod in her passion." Here Mr. Moss laughed or affected to laugh at the idea of the dagger. "I tell you that she would have it into a fellow in no time." "Then why don't you leave her alone? A little wizened monkey like that!" It was thus that Madame Socani expressed her opinion of her rival. "A creature without an ounce of flesh on her bones. Her voice won't last long. It never does with those little mean made apes. There was Grisi and Tietjens,--they had something of a body for a voice to come out of. And here is this girl that you think so much of, taking money hand over hand from the very first lord she comes across." "I don't believe a word of it," said the faithful Moss.