“You may not think it,” she said, “but I should not have been frightened.  I have never been frightened at Death.”

“But have you ever been near him?”

“Who knows?” she answered thoughtfully.

We were at the stage-door of the theatre.  The olive-liveried footman dismounted, and gravely opened the door of the carriage.  I got out, and gave my hand to Rosa, and we entered the theatre.

In an instant she had become the prima donna.  The curious little officials of the theatre bowed before her, and with prodigious smiles waved us forward to the stage.  The stage-manager, a small, fat man with white hair, was drilling the chorus.  As soon as he caught sight of us he dismissed the short-skirted girls and the fatigued-looking men, and skipped towards us.  The orchestra suddenly ceased.  Everyone was quiet.  The star had come.

“Good day, mademoiselle.  You are here to the moment.”

Rosa and the regisseur talked rapidly together, and presently the conductor of the orchestra stepped from his raised chair on to the stage, and with a stately inclination to Rosa joined in the conversation.  As for me, I looked about, and was stared at.  So far as I could see there was not much difference between an English stage and a French stage, viewed at close quarters, except that the French variety possesses perhaps more officials and a more bureaucratic air.  I gazed into the cold, gloomy auditorium, so bare of decoration, and decided that in England such an auditorium would not be tolerated.

After much further chatter the conductor bowed again, and returned to his seat.  Rosa beckoned to me, and I was introduced to the stage-manager.

“Allow me to present to you Mr. Foster, one of my friends.”

Rosa coughed, and I noticed that her voice was slightly hoarse.

“You have taken cold during the drive,” I said, pouring into the sea of French a little stream of English.

“Oh, no.  It is nothing; it will pass off in a minute.”

The stage-manager escorted me to a chair near a grand piano which stood in the wings.  Then some male artists, evidently people of importance, appeared out of the darkness at the back of the stage.  Rosa took off her hat and gloves, and placed them on the grand piano.  I observed that she was flushed, and I put it down to the natural excitement of the artist about to begin work.  The orchestra sounded resonantly in the empty theatre, and, under the yellow glare of unshaded electricity, the rehearsal of “Carmen” began at the point where Carmen makes her first entry.

As Rosa came to the centre of the stage from the wings she staggered.  One would have thought she was drunk.  At her cue, instead of commencing to sing, she threw up her hands, and with an appealing glance at me sank down to the floor.  I rushed to her, and immediately the entire personnel of the theatre was in a state of the liveliest excitement.  I thought of a similar scene in London not many months before.  But the poor girl was perfectly conscious, and even self-possessed.