The Ghost | Page 7

makes me sometimes think he is not an artist at
all--he is incapable of being jealous. I have known hundreds of singers,
and he is the one solitary bird among them of that plumage. No, it is
not jealousy."
"Then what is it?"
"I wish I knew. He asked me to go and dine with him this afternoon.
You know he dines at four o'clock. Of course, I went. What do you
think he wanted me to do? He actually suggested that I should change
the bill to-night! That showed me that something really was the matter,
because he's the most modest and courteous man I have ever known,
and he has a horror of disappointing the public. I asked him if he was
hoarse. No. I asked him if he felt ill. No. But he was extremely
depressed.
"'I'm quite well,' he said, 'and yet--' Then he stopped. 'And yet what?' It
seemed as if I couldn't drag it out of him. Then all of a sudden he told

me. 'My dear Smart,' he said, 'there is a misfortune coming to me. I feel
it.' That's just what he said--'There's a misfortune coming to me. I feel
it.' He's superstitious. They all are. Naturally, I set to work to soothe
him. I did what I could. I talked about his liver in the usual way. But it
had less than the usual effect. However, I persuaded him not to force
me to change the bill."
Mrs. Sullivan struck into the conversation.
"He isn't in love with Rosa, is he?" she demanded brusquely.
"In love with Rosa? Of course he isn't, my pet!" said Sullivan.
The wife glared at her husband as if angry, and Sullivan made a comic
gesture of despair with his hands.
"Is he?" Mrs. Sullivan persisted, waiting for Smart's reply.
"I never thought of that," said Sir Cyril simply. "No; I should say not,
decidedly not.... He may be, after all. I don't know. But if he were, that
oughtn't to depress him. Even Rosa ought to be flattered by the
admiration of a man like Alresca. Besides, so far as I know, they've
seen very little of each other. They're too expensive to sing together
often. There's only myself and Conried of New York who would dream
of putting them in the same bill. I should say they hadn't sung together
more than two or three times since the death of Lord Clarenceux; so,
even if he has been making love to her, she's scarcely had time to
refuse him--eh?"
"If he has been making love to Rosa," said Mrs. Sullivan slowly,
"whether she has refused him or not, it's a misfortune for him, that's
all."
"Oh, you women! you women!" Sullivan smiled. "How fond you are of
each other."
Mrs. Sullivan disdained to reply to her spouse.

"And, let me tell you," she added, "he has been making love to her."
The talk momentarily ceased, and in order to demonstrate that I was not
tongue-tied in the company of these celebrities, I ventured to inquire
what Lord Clarenceux, whose riches and eccentricities had reached
even the Scottish newspapers, had to do with the matter.
"Lord Clarenceux was secretly engaged to Rosa in Vienna," Sir Cyril
replied. "That was about two and a half years ago. He died shortly
afterwards. It was a terrible shock for her. Indeed, I have always
thought that the shock had something to do with her notorious quarrel
with us. She isn't naturally quarrelsome, so far as I can judge, though
really I have seen very little of her."
"By the way, what was the real history of that quarrel?" said Sullivan.
"I only know the beginning of it, and I expect Carl doesn't know even
that, do you, Carl?"
"No," I murmured modestly. "But perhaps it's a State secret."
"Not in the least," Sir Cyril said, turning to me. "I first heard Rosa in
Genoa--the opera-house there is more of a barn even than this, and a
worse stage than this used to be, if that's possible. She was nineteen. Of
course, I knew instantly that I had met with the chance of my life. In
my time I have discovered eleven stars, but this was a sun. I engaged
her at once, and she appeared here in the following July. She sang
twelve times, and--well, you know the sensation there was. I had
offered her twenty pounds a night in Genoa, and she seemed mighty
enchanted.
"After her season here I offered her two hundred pounds a night for the
following year; but Lord Clarenceux had met her then, and she merely
said she would think it over. She wouldn't sign a contract. I was
annoyed. My motto is, 'Never be annoyed,' but I was. Next to herself,
she owed