“What splendid tea!” I said, when the refection was in progress.  We had both found it convenient to shelter our feelings behind small talk.  “I’d no idea you could get tea like this in Bruges.”

“You can’t,” Rosa smiled.  “I never travel without my own brand.  It is one of Yvette’s special cares not to forget it.”

“Your maid?”

“Yes.”

“She seems not quite the ordinary maid,” I ventured.

“Yvette?  No!  I should think not.  She has served half the sopranos in Europe—­she won’t go to contraltos.  I possess her because I outbid all rivals for her services.  As a hairdresser she is unequalled.  And it’s so much nicer not being forced to call in a coiffeur in every town!  It was she who invented my ‘Elsa’ coiffure.  Perhaps you remember it?”

“Perfectly.  By the way, when do you recommence your engagements?”

She smiled nervously.  “I—­I haven’t decided.”

Nothing with any particle of significance passed during the remainder of our interview.  Telling her that I was leaving for England the next day, I bade good-by to Rosa.  She did not express the hope of seeing me again, and for some obscure reason, buried in the mysteries of love’s psychology, I dared not express the hope to her.  And so we parted, with a thousand things unsaid, on a note of ineffectuality, of suspense, of vague indefiniteness.

And the next morning I received from her this brief missive, which threw me into a wild condition of joyous expectancy:  “If you could meet me in the Church of St. Gilles at eleven o’clock this morning, I should like to have your advice upon a certain matter.—­Rosa.”

Seventy-seven years elapsed before eleven o’clock.

St. Gilles is a large church in a small deserted square at the back of the town.  I waited for Rosa in the western porch, and at five minutes past the hour she arrived, looking better in health, at once more composed and vivacious.  We sat down in a corner at the far end of one of the aisles.  Except ourselves and a couple of cleaners, there seemed to be no one in the church.

“You asked me yesterday about my engagements,” she began.

“Yes,” I said, “and I had a reason.  As a doctor, I will take leave to tell you that it is advisable for you to throw yourself into your work as soon as possible, and as completely as possible.”  And I remembered the similar advice which, out of the plenitude of my youthful wisdom, I had offered to Alresca only a few days before.

“The fact is that I have signed a contract to sing ‘Carmen’ at the Paris Opera Comique in a fortnight’s time.  I have never sung the role there before, and I am, or rather I was, very anxious to do so.  This morning I had a telegram from the manager urging me to go to Paris without delay for the rehearsals.”

“And are you going?”

“That is the question.  I may tell you that one of my objects in calling on poor Alresca was to consult him about the point.  The truth is, I am threatened with trouble if I appear at the Opera Comique, particularly in ‘Carmen.’  The whole matter is paltry beyond words, but really I am a little afraid.”