"Not at all. The call is for three o'clock. This is the second one, and they fixed the hour to suit me. It is really my first rehearsal, because at the previous one I was too hoarse to sing a note."
I rose to go.
"Wouldn't you like to come with me to the theatre?" she said with an adorable accent of invitation.
My good fortune staggered me.
After she had taken her egg-and-milk we set out.
CHAPTER XII
EGG-AND-MILK
I was intensely conscious of her beauty as I sat by her side in the swiftly rolling victoria. And I was conscious of other qualities in her too—of her homeliness, her good-fellowship, her trustfulness. The fact that she was one of the most famous personalities in Europe did not, after our talk, in the least disturb my pleasing dreams of a possible future. It was, nevertheless, specially forced upon me, for as we drove along the Rue de Rivoli, past the interminable façades of the Louvre, and the big shops, and so into the meaner quarter of the markets—the Opéra Comique was then situated in its temporary home in the Place du Châtelet—numberless wayfarers showed by their demeanor of curiosity that Rosetta Rosa was known to them. They were much more polite than English people would have been, but they did not hide their interest in us.