The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy Part 26

"Can you guess why I wear them?"

"Not because they make you look prettier, for that's impossible."

"Will you please remember that I like you because you are not in the habit of making speeches."

"I beg pardon. I won't offend again. Well, then, I will confess that I don't know why you wear jewels. There must be a Puritan strain in my character, for I cannot enter into the desire for jewels. I say this merely because you have practically invited me to be brutal."

Now that I recall that conversation I realize how gentle she was towards my crude and callous notions concerning personal adornment.

"Yet you went to England in order to fetch my jewels."

"No, I went to England in order to be of use to a lady. But tell me--why do you wear jewels off the stage?"

"Simply because, having them, I have a sort of feeling that they ought to be used. It seems a waste to keep them hidden in a strong box, and I never could tolerate waste. Really, I scarcely care more for jewels, as jewels, than you do yourself."

"Still, for a person who doesn't care for them, you seem to have a fair quant.i.ty of them."

"Ah! But many were given to me--and the rest I bought when I was young, or soon afterwards. Besides, they are part of my stock in trade."

"When you were young!" I repeated, smiling. "How long is that since?"

"Ages."

I coughed.

"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 regisseur 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.

After much further chatter the conductor bowed again, and returned to his seat. Rosa beckoned to me, and I was introduced to the stage-manager.

"Allow me to present to you Mr. Foster, one of my friends."

Rosa coughed, and I noticed that her voice was slightly hoa.r.s.e.

"You have taken cold during the drive," I said, pouring into the sea of French a little stream of English.

"Oh, no. It is nothing; it will pa.s.s off in a minute."

The stage-manager escorted me to a chair near a grand piano which stood in the wings. Then some male artists, evidently people of importance, appeared out of the darkness at the back of the stage.

Rosa took off her hat and gloves, and placed them on the grand piano.

I observed that she was flushed, and I put it down to the natural excitement of the artist about to begin work. The orchestra sounded resonantly in the empty theatre, and, under the yellow glare of unshaded electricity, the rehearsal of "Carmen" began at the point where Carmen makes her first entry.

As Rosa came to the centre of the stage from the wings she staggered.

One would have thought she was drunk. At her cue, instead of commencing to sing, she threw up her hands, and with an appealing glance at me sank down to the floor. I rushed to her, and immediately the entire personnel of the theatre was in a state of the liveliest excitement. I thought of a similar scene in London not many months before. But the poor girl was perfectly conscious, and even self-possessed.

"Water!" she murmured. "I shall die of thirst if you don't give me some water to drink at once."

There appeared to be no water within the theatre, but at last some one appeared with a carafe and gla.s.s. She drank two gla.s.sfuls, and then dropped the gla.s.s, which broke on the floor.