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 tête-à-tête with his dark and languorous lady.
Unfortunately, I was quite unpractised in the art of maintaining a
tête-à-tête 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!"