who deserve praise.'

An electric bell trembled in the theatre.

Morenita picked up her cloak.

'_Mon ami_,' she warned Villedo. 'I must go. Diaz, _mon petit_! you will
persuade Mademoiselle Peel to come to the room of the Directeur later.
Madame, a few of us will meet there--is it not so, Villedo? We shall
count on you, madame. You have hidden yourself too long.'

I glanced at Diaz, and he nodded. As a fact, I wished to refuse; but I
could not withstand the seduction of Morenita. She had a physical
influence which was unique in my experience.

'I accept,' I said.

'_A tout a l'heure_, then,' she twittered gaily; and they left as they
had come, Villedo affectionately toying with Morenita's hand.

Diaz remained behind a moment.

'I am so glad you didn't decline,' he said. 'You see, here in this
theatre Morenita is a queen. I wager she has never before in all her life
put herself out of the way as she has done for you to-night.'

'Really!' I faltered.

And, indeed, as I pondered over it, the politeness of these people
appeared to be marvellous, and so perfectly accomplished. Villedo, who
has made a European reputation and rejuvenated his theatre in a dozen
years, is doubtless, as he said, a professional maker of compliments. In
his position a man must be. But, nevertheless, last night's triumph is
officially and very genuinely Villedo's. While as for Morenita and Diaz,
the mere idea of these golden stars waiting on me, the librettist,
effacing themselves, rendering themselves subordinate at such a moment,
was fantastic. It passed the credible.... A Diaz standing silent and
deferential, while an idolized prima donna stepped down from her throne
to flatter me in her own temple! All that I had previously achieved of
renown seemed provincial, insular.

But Diaz took his own right place in the spacious salon of Villedo
afterwards, after all the applause had ceased, and the success had been
consecrated, and the enraptured audience had gone, and the lights were
extinguished in the silent auditorium. It is a room that seems to be
furnished with nothing but a grand piano and a large, flat writing-table
and a few chairs. On the walls are numberless signed portraits of singers
and composers, and antique playbills of the Opera Comique, together with
strange sinister souvenirs of the great fires which have destroyed the
house and its patrons in the past. When Diaz led me in, only Villedo and
the principal artists and Pou