“What is the matter with Alresca to-night?” Sullivan asked.  “Suffering the pangs of jealousy, I suppose.”

“Alresca,” Sir Cyril replied, “is the greatest tenor living, and to-night he sings like a variety comedian.  But it is not jealousy.  There is one thing about Alresca that makes me sometimes think he is not an artist at all—­he is incapable of being jealous.  I have known hundreds of singers, and he is the one solitary bird among them of that plumage.  No, it is not jealousy.”

“Then what is it?”

“I wish I knew.  He asked me to go and dine with him this afternoon.  You know he dines at four o’clock.  Of course, I went.  What do you think he wanted me to do?  He actually suggested that I should change the bill to-night!  That showed me that something really was the matter, because he’s the most modest and courteous man I have ever known, and he has a horror of disappointing the public.  I asked him if he was hoarse.  No.  I asked him if he felt ill.  No.  But he was extremely depressed.

“‘I’m quite well,’ he said, ‘and yet—­’ Then he stopped.  ’And yet what?’ It seemed as if I couldn’t drag it out of him.  Then all of a sudden he told me.  ‘My dear Smart,’ he said, ’there is a misfortune coming to me.  I feel it.’  That’s just what he said—­’There’s a misfortune coming to me.  I feel it.’  He’s superstitious.  They all are.  Naturally, I set to work to soothe him.  I did what I could.  I talked about his liver in the usual way.  But it had less than the usual effect.  However, I persuaded him not to force me to change the bill.”

Mrs. Sullivan struck into the conversation.

“He isn’t in love with Rosa, is he?” she demanded brusquely.

“In love with Rosa?  Of course he isn’t, my pet!” said Sullivan.

The wife glared at her husband as if angry, and Sullivan made a comic gesture of despair with his hands.

“Is he?” Mrs. Sullivan persisted, waiting for Smart’s reply.

“I never thought of that,” said Sir Cyril simply.  “No; I should say not, decidedly not....  He may be, after all.  I don’t know.  But if he were, that oughtn’t to depress him.  Even Rosa ought to be flattered by the admiration of a man like Alresca.  Besides, so far as I know, they’ve seen very little of each other.  They’re too expensive to sing together often.  There’s only myself and Conried of New York who would dream of putting them in the same bill.  I should say they hadn’t sung together more than two or three times since the death of Lord Clarenceux; so, even if he has been making love to her, she’s scarcely had time to refuse him—­eh?”

“If he has been making love to Rosa,” said Mrs. Sullivan slowly, “whether she has refused him or not, it’s a misfortune for him, that’s all.”

“Oh, you women! you women!” Sullivan smiled.  “How fond you are of each other.”

Mrs. Sullivan disdained to reply to her spouse.

“And, let me tell you,” she added, “he has been making love to her.”