“True,” she answered. “There is no place like London. We’ll go. The Op�ra Comique will manage without me. And I will accept no more engagements for a very, very long time. Money doesn’t matter. You have enough, and I — oh, Carl, I’ve got stacks and piles of it. It’s so easy, if you have a certain sort of throat like mine, to make more money than you can spend.”

“Yes,” I said. “We will have a holiday, after we are married, and that will be in a fortnight’s time. We will go to Devonshire, where the heather is. But, my child, you will be wanting to sing again soon. It is your life.”

“No,” she replied, “you are my life, aren’t you?” And, after a pause: “But perhaps singing