hostess, and I was rather surprised to find that she showed not a
trace of the nervous excitement which had marked her entrance into the
box. She sat there, an excellent imitation of a woman of fashion,
languid, unmoved, apparently a little bored, but finely conscious of
doing the right thing.

"It's a treat to see any one enjoy anything as you enjoy this music,"
she said to me. She spoke well, perhaps rather too carefully, and with
a hint of the cockney accent.

"It runs in the family, you know, Mrs. Smith," I replied, blushing for
the ingenuousness which had pleased her.

"Don't call me Mrs. Smith; call me Emmeline, as we are cousins. I
shouldn't at all like it if I mightn't call you Carl. Carl is such a
handsome name, and it suits you. Now, doesn't it, Sully?"

"Yes, darling," Sullivan answered nonchalantly. He was at the back of
the box, and clearly it was his benevolent desire to give me fair
opportunity of a tête-à-tête with his dark and languorous lady.
Unfortunately, I was quite unpractised in the art of maintaining a
tête-à-tête with dark and languorous ladies. Presently he rose.

"I must look up Smart," he said, and left us.

"Sullivan has been telling me about you. What a strange meeting! And
so you are a doctor! You don't know how young you look. Why, I am old
enough to be your mother!"

"Oh, no, you aren't," I said. At any rate, I knew enough to say that.