in love
with her!

'I don't--no, I never _shall_ believe, that independent exciting
student's life is good for a girl. But I never say so to Rose. When she
forgets to be irritable and to feel that the world is going against her,
she is often very sweet to me, and I can't bear there should be any
conflict.'

His next day's letter contained the following:--

'Are you properly amused, sir, at your wife's performances in town? Our
three concerts you have heard all about. I still can't get over them. I
go about haunted by the _seriousness_, the life-and-death interest
people throw into music. It is astonishing! And outside, as we got into
our hansom, such sights and sounds!--such starved fierce-looking men,
such ghastly women!

'But since then Rose has been taking me into society. Yesterday
afternoon, after I wrote to you, we went to see Rose's artistic
friends--the Piersons--with whom she was staying last summer, and to-day
we have even called on Lady Charlotte Wynnstay.

'As to Mrs. Pierson, I never saw such an odd bundle of ribbons and rags
and queer embroideries as she looked when we called. However, Rose says
that, for "an aesthete"--she despises them now herself--Mrs. Pierson has
wonderful taste, and that her wall-papers and her gowns, if I only
understood them, are not the least like those of other aesthetic persons,
but very _recherche_--which may be. She talked to Rose of nothing but
acting, especially of Madame Desforets. No one, according to her, has
anything to do with an actress's private life, or ought to take it into
account. But, Robert, dear,--an actress is a woman, and has a soul!

'Then Lady Charlotte,--you would have laughed at our _entree_.

'We found she was in town, and went on her "day," as she had asked Rose
to do. The room was rather dark--none of these London rooms seem to me
to have any light and air in them. The butler got our names wrong, and I
marched in first, more shy than I ever have been before in my life. Lady
Charlotte had two gentlemen with her. She evidently did not know me in
the least; she stood staring at me with her eyeglass on, and her cap so
crooked I could think of nothing but a wish to put it straight. Then
Rose followed, and in a few minutes it seemed to me as though it were
Rose who were hostess, talking to the two gentlemen and being kind to
Lady Charlotte. I am sure everybody in the room was amused by her
self-possession, Lady Charlotte included. The gentlemen stared