"It is seven years since I was young," she said, "and I was sixteen at
the time."
"You are positively venerable, then; and since you are, I must be
too."
"I am much older than you are," she said; "not in years, but in life.
You don't feel old."
"And do you?"
"Frightfully."
"What brings it on?"
"Oh! Experience--and other things. It is the soul which grows old."
"But you have been happy?"
"Never--never in my life, except when I was singing, have I been
happy. Have you been happy?"
"Yes," I said, "once or twice."
"When you were a boy?"
"No, since I have become a man. Just--just recently."
"People fancy they are happy," she murmured.
"Isn't that the same thing as being happy?"
"Perhaps." Then suddenly changing the subject: "You haven't told me
about your journey. Just a bare statement that there was a delay on
the railway and another delay on the steamer. Don't you think you
ought to fill in the details?"
So I filled them in; but I said nothing about my mysterious enemy who
had accompanied me, and who after strangely disappearing and
reappearing had disappeared again; nor about the woman whom I had met
on the Admiralty Pier. I wondered when he might reappear once more.
There was no proper reason why I should not have told Rosa about these
persons, but some instinctive feeling, some timidity of spirit,
prevented me from doing so.
"How thrilling! Were you frightened on the steamer?" she asked.
"Yes," I admitted frankly.
"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 régisseur 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.