d there lay Mamma Valerius in bed, smiling to him
and putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent! And she
added:

"You must not tell anybody!"

"You can rely on me," said Raoul.

He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine,
already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled; and it
seemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him, around the
room, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair and
forget-me-not eyes.

"I know! I know I can!" she said, with a happy laugh. "But why don't
you come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy? Give
me your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte, which
Daddy Daae had told you. I am very fond of you, M. Raoul, you know.
And so is Christine too!"

"She is fond of me!" sighed the young man. He found a difficulty in
collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius'
"good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken to
him so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort of
nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost,
whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behind
the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who were
repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet,
had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.

He asked in a low voice: "What makes you think that Christine is fond
of me, madame?"

"She used to speak of you every day."

"Really? ... And what did she tell you?"

"She told me that you had made her a proposal!"

And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly. Raoul sprang from
his chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.

"What's this? Where are you going? Sit down again at once, will you?
... Do you think I will let you go like that? ... If you're angry with
me for laughing, I beg your pardon... After all, what has happened
isn't your fault... Didn't you know? ... Did you think that Christine
was free? ..."

"Is Christine engaged to be married?" the wretched Raoul asked, in a
choking voice.

"Why no! Why no! ... You know as well as I do that Christine couldn't
marry, even if she wanted to!"

"But I don't know anything about it! ... And why can't Christine marry?"

"Because of the Angel of Music, of course! ..."

"I don't follow ..."

"Yes, he forbids her to! ..."

"He forbids her! ... The Angel of