As these two stood together Rosetta Rosa smiled at him; he gave her a timid glance and looked away.

When the clapping had ceased and the curtain hid the passions of the stage, I turned with a sigh of exhaustion and of pleasure to my hostess, and I was rather surprised to find that she showed not a trace of the nervous excitement which had marked her entrance into the box.  She sat there, an excellent imitation of a woman of fashion, languid, unmoved, apparently a little bored, but finely conscious of doing the right thing.

“It’s a treat to see any one enjoy anything as you enjoy this music,” she said to me.  She spoke well, perhaps rather too carefully, and with a hint of the cockney accent.

“It runs in the family, you know, Mrs. Smith,” I replied, blushing for the ingenuousness which had pleased her.

“Don’t call me Mrs. Smith; call me Emmeline, as we are cousins.  I shouldn’t at all like it if I mightn’t call you Carl.  Carl is such a handsome name, and it suits you.  Now, doesn’t it, Sully?”

“Yes, darling,” Sullivan answered nonchalantly.  He was at the back of the box, and clearly it was his benevolent desire to give me fair opportunity of a tete-a-tete with his dark and languorous lady.  Unfortunately, I was quite unpractised in the art of maintaining a tete-a-tete with dark and languorous ladies.  Presently he rose.

“I must look up Smart,” he said, and left us.

“Sullivan has been telling me about you.  What a strange meeting!  And so you are a doctor!  You don’t know how young you look.  Why, I am old enough to be your mother!”

“Oh, no, you aren’t,” I said.  At any rate, I knew enough to say that.

And she smiled.

“Personally,” she went on, “I hate music—­loathe it.  But it’s Sullivan’s trade, and, of course, one must come here.”

She waved a jewelled arm towards the splendid animation of the auditorium.

“But surely, Emmeline,” I cried protestingly, “you didn’t ‘loathe’ that first act.  I never heard anything like it.  Rosa was simply—­well, I can’t describe it.”

She gazed at me, and a cloud of melancholy seemed to come into her eyes.  And after a pause she said, in the strangest tone, very quietly: 

“You’re in love with her already.”

And her eyes continued to hold mine.

“Who could help it?” I laughed.

She leaned towards me, and her left hand hung over the edge of the box.

“Women like Rosetta Rosa ought to be killed!” she said, with astonishing ferocity.  Her rich, heavy contralto vibrated through me.  She was excited again, that was evident.  The nervous mood had overtaken her.  The long pendent lobes of her ears crimsoned, and her opulent bosom heaved.  I was startled.  I was rather more than startled—­I was frightened.  I said to myself, “What a peculiar creature!”

“Why?” I questioned faintly.

“Because they are too young, too lovely, too dangerous,” she responded with fierce emphasis.  “And as for Rosa in particular—­as for Rosa in particular—­if you knew what I knew, what I’ve seen——­”