“May I hear the story?”

“You know Carlotta Deschamps, who always takes Carmen at the Comique?”

“I’ve heard her sing.”

“By the way, that is her half-sister, Marie Deschamps, who sings in your cousin’s operas at the London Diana.”

“I have made the acquaintance of Marie—­a harmless little thing!”

“Her half-sister isn’t quite so harmless.  She is the daughter of a Spanish mother, while Marie is the daughter of an English mother, a Cockney woman.  As to Carlotta, when I was younger”—­oh, the deliciously aged air with which this creature of twenty-three referred to her youth—­“I was singing at the Opera Comique in Paris, where Carlotta was starring, and I had the misfortune to arouse her jealousy.  She is frightfully jealous, and get worse as she gets older.  She swore to me that if I ever dared to appear at the Comique again she would have me killed.  I laughed.  I forgot the affair, but it happens that I never have sung at the Comique since that time.  And now that I am not merely to appear at the Comique, but am going to sing ‘Carmen’ there, her own particular role, Deschamps is furious.  I firmly believe she means harm.  Twice she has written to me the most formidable threats.  It seems strange that I should stand in awe of a woman like Carlotta Deschamps, but so it is.  I am half-inclined to throw up the engagement.”

That a girl of Rosa’s spirit should have hesitated for an instant about fulfilling her engagement showed most plainly, I thought, that she was not herself.  I assured her that her fears were groundless, that we lived in the nineteenth century, and that Deschamps’ fury would spend itself in nothing worse than threats.  In the end she said she would reconsider the matter.

“Don’t wait to reconsider,” I urged, “but set off for Paris at once.  Go to-day.  Act.  It will do you good.”

“But there are a hundred things to be thought of first,” she said, laughing at my earnestness.

“For example?”

“Well, my jewels are with my London bankers.”

“Can’t you sing without jewels?”

“Not in Paris.  Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“You can write to your bankers to send them by registered post.”

“Post!  They are worth thousands and thousands of pounds.  I ought really to fetch them, but there would scarcely be time.”

“Let me bring them to you in Paris,” I said.  “Give me a letter to your bankers, and I will undertake to deliver the jewels safely into your hands.”

“I could not dream of putting you to so much trouble.”

The notion of doing something for her had, however, laid hold of me.  At that moment I felt that to serve even as her jewel-carrier would be for me the supreme happiness in the world.

“But,” I said, “I ask it as a favor.”

“Do you?” She gave me a divine smile, and yielded.

At her request we did not leave the church together.  She preceded me.  I waited a few minutes, and then walked slowly out.  Happening to look back as I passed along the square, I saw a woman’s figure which was familiar to me, and, dominated by a sudden impulse, I returned quickly on my steps.  The woman was Yvette, and she was obviously a little startled when I approached her.