She took up at random a morning paper, smelling freshly of printer's ink, and ran her eyes over its columns. Several columns were devoted to a description of the brilliant first appearance and splendid success of the lovely prima donna who had just come to New York from Europe with all the prestige of a brilliant foreign reputation fresh upon her.
The professor sat down and dived eagerly into the papers, while Madam Dolores rapidly gleaned the contents of the one she held. Presently she looked around at her companion with an eager light in her dark eyes and a sudden flush on her dark cheeks.
"Professor," she said, pointing one taper finger to a paragraph, "here is a book I should like to read. Will you send out and get it for me?"
The professor looked at the words under her finger.
"Poems by R. V.," he read; "certainly, my dear," rising, then at the door he turned and said, "who is R. V., my child?"
"Some American poet," said Madam Dolores, carelessly, with her head turned away.
The door closed between them and a long, long sigh quivered over the lips of the beautiful prima donna with the sorrowful name, Dolores. She hid her face in her beautiful hands.
"His poems," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "It will be almost like meeting him face to face. Oh, Ronald, Ronald!"
You would not have thought, to see that slender figure bowed so sorrowfully there, that all New York was raving over her beauty and her genius. But it was true. Madam Dolores, as she called herself, had been induced to come to America by a New York manager who wished to bring out an opera by an author who desired to remain unknown for the present.
It was rumored that the gentleman had already achieved fame as a poet, but beyond that fact, which the manager did not deny, no one even remotely guessed the name. Neither money nor pains had been spared to bring the opera out successfully. Madam Dolores, who had just completed a successful starring tour abroad, was engaged at immense expense to bring it out. The result was—success! Laurels for the brow of the composer, and new laurels for the brow of the singer.