. I had
forgotten to tell you that, for convenience' sake, they had quitted
their old lodgings, and had taken chambers off the Strand, within three
minutes' easy walk of the house. It was here that Christopher fell ill.

When he grew a little better, the Bohemian rather began to aggravate
him. Rubach talked of the new piece and its heroine, and of nothing but
the new piece and its heroine. He was enraptured with her. He confessed
himself overhead in love. So charming, so dainty, so sweet, so piquante,
so lovable was Mademoiselle Helene. Rubach, half in earnest, half in
jest, confessed himself hopeless. Mademoiselle was engaged to Mr. Holt
the dramatist.

'And even if she were not,' he said, 'is it likely she would look at a
poor wretch of a fiddler? She is going to make her fortune. She is going
to be the rage. She has never played before, but she sings like a lark,
like a linnet, like a nightingale; and she walks the boards as naturally
as if she had been born upon them. She is English too, in spite of her
foreign name. Why on earth do professional English people take foreign
names?'

'I don't know, I'm sure,' said Christopher wearily. 'I should like to go
to sleep.'

While the sick man slept or made believe to sleep, Rubach was quiet as a
mouse; but when he awoke the ecstatic praises began again, until, before
the public knew more of the new actress than her name, our poor invalid
was sick of her and of her praises to the very soul.

He tried, however, to take some interest in the piece, and as he became
stronger he began to grow a little anxious about his own share in its
success. When the eventful night came he was able to sit up for an hour
before the piece began, and Rubach had to leave him. It was midnight
before the faithful chum returned, and after looking in on the invalid,
who seemed to slumber calmly, sat down for a final pipe by his own
bedside. But Christopher was only 'playing 'possum,' as our playful
American cousins put it, and, his anxiety over-riding his desire for
quiet, he called out,

'Is that you, Carl?'

'Yes,' said the other, hastening into his room on tiptoe. 'I thought you
were asleep.'

'How did the music go?'

'Capitally. Both the songs repeated. The overture and the second
entr'acte would have been redemanded at a concert, but of course the
play was the thing. Such a success, Stretton! Such a furore! She is a
little goddess, a queen. You should see her and hear her! Ah me!'--wit