‘It is indeed true, My Lady. We have, if I may be permitted to say so, a profusion of beautiful women.’

He bowed and would have made his apologies when another waiter appeared and whispered in his ear.

‘Go and tell them as little as you have told us,’ Lord Drayton said.

‘I am disappointed in you, Alfonso. I thought you were infallible.’

‘I am desolated to lose my reputation,’ Alfonso said and glided away towards the occupants of the other table who had requested his presence.

‘Her pearls are grey, I tell you,’ Lady Violet said when he had gone.

Lord Drayton put his eyeglass into his eye, looked towards Mistral, then let it drop.

‘I don’t believe there are such things.’

‘Will you bet on it?’ Lady Violet enquired.

He shook his head.

Where jewellery is concerned, you are betting on a certainty. I shan’t give you the satisfaction of winning any money. Besides, the Casino has first call on it. I did rather well last night and it’s only fair they should get a chance to take it off me tonight.’

‘Are you going to the Concert?’ Violet asked.

Lord Drayton shook his head.

‘I hate music.’

‘Well, Robert and I will go for a short while,’ Lady Violet said, ‘and then, if it proves boring, we will join you in the gambling rooms. I doubt if we shall stay long. Sopranos invariably give me a headache, they are so noisy.’

‘I find trente-et-quarante much more soothing,’ Lord Drayton replied.

If they were blasé about the Italian singer, to Mistral it was a moment of entrancement when her voice soared out high and clear under the painted ceiling of the Concert Room, and even the fashionable audience seemed to hold their breath as they listened.

It was like being transported to a new world, she thought, a world of colour and sound, a world she had never known existed, although she had loved to listen to the Nuns singing in the Chapel at the Convent.

But how different this was! The distinguished company glittering and sparkling with jewels, the uncurtained windows opening out into the scented darkness, the large orchestra playing as Mistral had never heard music played before, and then the magic of a voice rising and falling, seeming in its very loveliness to draw the hearts of those who listened.

When the concert ended, Mistral sat for a moment in silence as the applause broke out around her, and the face she turned to Emilie was alive with emotion.

‘It was so lovely, Aunt Emilie,’ she said, ‘I feel as if I could cry and laugh both at the same time. I never knew that music could make one feel like this.’

Emilie glanced at her sharply. She had not expected that Mistral would be so temperamental. There was no doubt from her shining eyes and parted lips that the music had excited her. She had thought that Mistral would be subdued and passionless after the long years in the Convent, but it seemed that her feelings were easily aroused. In that way lay danger.