tely to the very furthest roof, was the gallery (where but for
Sullivan I should have been), a mass of black spotted with white
faces.

Excitement was in the air: the expectation of seeing once again
Rosetta Rosa, the girl with the golden throat, the mere girl who, two
years ago, had in one brief month captured London, and who now, after
a period of petulance, had decided to recapture London. On ordinary
nights, for the inhabitants of boxes, the Opera is a social
observance, an exhibition of jewels, something between an F.O.
reception and a conversazione with music in the distance. But to-night
the habitues confessed a genuine interest in the stage itself,
abandoning their role of players. Dozens of times since then have I
been to the Opera, and never have I witnessed the candid enthusiasm
of that night. If London can be naive, it was naive then.

The conductor raised his baton. The orchestra ceased its tuning. The
lights were lowered. Silence and stillness enwrapped the auditorium.
And the quivering violins sighed out the first chords of the
"Lohengrin" overture. For me, then, there existed nothing save the
voluptuous music, to which I abandoned myself as to the fascination of
a dream. But not for long. Just as the curtain rose, the door behind
me gave a click, and Sullivan entered in all his magnificence. I
jumped up. On his arm in the semi-darkness I discerned a tall,
olive-pale woman, with large handsome features of Jewish cast, and
large, liquid black eyes. She wore a dead-white gown, and over this a
gorgeous cloak of purple and mauve.

"Emmeline, this is Carl," Sullivan whispered.

She smiled faintly, giving me her finger-tips, and then she suddenly
took a step forward as if the better to examine my face. Her strange
eyes met mine. She gave a little indefinable unnecessary "Ah!" and
sank down into a chair, loosing my hand swiftly. I was going to say
that she loosed my hand as if it had been the tail of a snake that she
had picked up in mistake for something else. But that would leave the
impression that her gesture was melodramatic, which it was not. Only
there was in her demeanor a touch of the bizarre, ever so slight; yes,
so slight that I could not be sure that I had not imagined it.

"The wife's a bit overwrought," Sullivan murmured in my ear. "Nerves,
you know. Women are like that. Wait till you're married. Take no
notice. She'll be all right soon."

I nodded and sat down. In a moment the music had res