There were the colleagues who came to see Margaret off and wished that they were going too.

In spite of the windy weather there was Signor Pompeo Stromboli, the tenor, as broad as any two ordinary men, in a fur coat of the most terribly expensive sort, bringing an enormous box of chocolates with his best wishes; and there was the great German dramatic barytone, Herr Tiefenbach, who sang 'Amfortas' better than any one, and was a true musician as well as a man of culture, and he brought Margaret a book which he insisted that she must read on the voyage, called _The Genesis of the Tone Epos_; and there was that excellent and useful little artist, Fraeulein Ottilie Braun, who never had an enemy in her life, who was always ready to sing any part creditably at a moment's notice if one of the leading artists broke down, and who was altogether one of the best, kindest, and least conceited human beings that ever joined an opera company.

She brought her great colleague a little bunch of violets.
Least expected of them all, there was Schreiermeyer, with a basket of grape fruit in his tightly-gloved podgy hands; and he was smiling cheerfully, which was an event in itself.

They followed Margaret up to the promenade deck after her maids had gone below, and stood round her in a group, all talking at once in different languages.
Griggs chanced to be the only other passenger on that part of the deck and he joined the party, for he knew them all.

Margaret gave him her hand quietly and nodded to him.