"Will she renew her engagement, think you?" inquired Mr. King.
"I don't know certainly," replied Madame. "The manager makes very liberal offers; but she hesitates. She seldom alludes to Mr. Fitzgerald, but I can see that his presence is irksome to her; and then his sudden irruption into her room, as told by Giovanna, has given rise to some green-room gossip. The tenor is rather too assiduous in his attentions, you know; and the _seconda donna_ is her enemy, because she has superseded her in his affections. These things make her wish to leave Rome; but I tell her she will have to encounter very much the same anywhere."
"Madame," said the young man, "you stand in the place of a mother to Miss Royal; and as such, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you, without mentioning the subject to her, enable me to have a private interview with her to-morrow morning?"
"You are aware that it is contrary to her established rule to see any gentleman, except in the presence of myself or Papa Balbino. But you have manifested so much delicacy, as well as friendliness, that we all feel the utmost confidence in you." She smiled significantly as she added: "If I slip out of the room, as it were by accident, I don't believe I shall find it very difficult to make my peace with her."
Alfred King looked forward to the next morning with impatience; yet when he found himself, for the first time, alone with Rosabella, he felt painfully embarrassed. She glanced at the fresh rose he wore, but could not summon courage to ask whether roses were his favorite flowers. He broke the momentary silence by saying: "Your performances here have been a source of such inexpressible delight to me, Miss Royal, that it pains me to think of such a thing as a last evening."
"Thank you for calling me by that name," she replied. "It carries me back to a happier time. I hardly know myself as La Señorita Campaneo. It all seems to me so strange and unreal, that, were it not for a few visible links with the past, I should feel as if I had died and passed into another world."
"May I ask whether you intend to renew your engagement?" inquired he.
She looked up quickly and earnestly, and said, "What would you advise me?"
"The brevity of our acquaintance would hardly warrant my assuming the office of adviser," replied he modestly.