Alresca turned his head.
"Rosa!" he cried in bewilderment, put out his arms, and then drew them sharply back again.
It was Rosetta. She ran towards us, and shook hands with kind expressions of greeting, and our eyes followed her as she moved about, striking matches and applying them to candles. Then she took off her hat and veil.
"There! I seemed to know the house," she said. "Immediately I had entered the courtyard I felt that there was a corridor running to the right, and at the end of that corridor some steps and a landing and a door, and on the other side of that door a large drawing-room. And so, without ringing or waiting for the faithful Alexis, I came in."
"And what brings you to Bruges, dear lady?" asked Alresca.
"Solicitude for your health, dear sir," she replied, smiling. "At Bayreuth I met that quaint person, Mrs. Sullivan Smith, who told me that you were still here with Mr. Foster; and to-day, as I was travelling from Cologne to Ostend, the idea suddenly occurred to me to spend one night at Bruges, and make inquiries into your condition—and that of Mr. Foster. You know the papers have been publishing the most contradictory accounts."
"Have they indeed?" laughed Alresca.
But I could see that he was nervous and not at ease. For myself, I was, it must be confessed, enchanted to see Rosa again, and so unexpectedly, and it was amazingly nice of her to include myself in her inquiries, and yet I divined that it would have been better if she had never come. I had a sense of some sort of calamity.
Alresca was flushed. He spoke in short, hurried sentences. Alternately his tones were passionate and studiously cold. Rosa's lovely presence, her musical chatter, her gay laughter, filled the room. She seemed to exhale a delightful and intoxicating atmosphere, which spread itself through the chamber and enveloped the soul of Alresca. It was as if he fought against an influence, and then gradually yielded to the sweetness of it. I observed him closely—for was he not my patient?—and I guessed that a struggle was passing within him. I thought of what he had just been saying to me, and I feared lest the strong will should be scarcely so strong as it had deemed itself.
"You have dined?" asked Alresca.