by which they were to reach the
wings. Raoul wanted to stop and ask for an explanation. But the form,
which wore a sort of long frock-coat and a pointed cap, said:

"Quick! Go away quickly!"

Christine was already dragging Raoul, compelling him to start running
again.

"But who is he? Who is that man?" he asked.

Christine replied: "It's the Persian."

"What's he doing here?"

"Nobody knows. He is always in the Opera."

"You are making me run away, for the first time in my life. If we
really saw Erik, what I ought to have done was to nail him to Apollo's
lyre, just as we nail the owls to the walls of our Breton farms; and
there would have been no more question of him."

"My dear Raoul, you would first have had to climb up to Apollo's lyre:
that is no easy matter."

"The blazing eyes were there!"

"Oh, you are getting like me now, seeing him everywhere! What I took
for blazing eyes was probably a couple of stars shining through the
strings of the lyre."

And Christine went down another floor, with Raoul following her.

"As you have quite made up your mind to go, Christine, I assure you it
would be better to go at once. Why wait for to-morrow? He may have
heard us to-night."

"No, no, he is working, I tell you, at his Don Juan Triumphant and not
thinking of us."

"You're so sure of that you keep on looking behind you!"

"Come to my dressing-room."

"Hadn't we better meet outside the Opera?"

"Never, till we go away for good! It would bring us bad luck, if I did
not keep my word. I promised him to see you only here."

"It's a good thing for me that he allowed you even that. Do you know,"
said Raoul bitterly, "that it was very plucky of you to let us play at
being engaged?"

"Why, my dear, he knows all about it! He said, 'I trust you,
Christine. M. de Chagny is in love with you and is going abroad.
Before he goes, I want him to be as happy as I am.' Are people so
unhappy when they love?"

"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved."

They came to Christine's dressing-room.

"Why do you think that you are safer in this room than on the stage?"
asked Raoul. "You heard him through the walls here, therefore he can
certainly hear us."

"No. He gave me his word not to be behind the walls of my dressing-room
again and I believe Erik's word. This room and my bedroom on the lake
are for me, exclusively, and not to be approached by him."

"How can you have gone fr