When we reached Bolivar Square, we found the company waiting; and, as if for a rebuke to us, the butler announced dinner the moment we entered. I was seated between Mr. Morley and a friend of his who took me down, Mr. Baddeley, a portly gentleman, with an expanse of snowy shirt from which flashed three diamond studs. A huge gold chain reposed upon his front, and on his finger shone a brilliant of great size. Every thing about him seemed to say, "Look how real I am! No shoddy about me!" His hands were plump and white, and looked as if they did not know what dust was. His talk sounded very rich, and yet there was no pretence in it. His wife looked less of a lady than he of a gentleman, for she betrayed conscious importance. I found afterwards that he was the only son of a railway contractor, who had himself handled the spade, but at last died enormously rich. He spoke blandly, but with a certain quiet authority which I disliked. "Are you fond of the opera, Mrs. Percivale?" he asked me in order to make talk. "I have never been to the opera," I answered. "Never been to the opera? Ain't you fond of music?" "Did you ever know a lady that wasn't?" "Then you must go to the opera." "But it is just because I fancy myself fond of music that I don't think I should like the opera." "You can't hear such music anywhere else." "But the antics of the singers, pretending to be in such furies of passion, yet modulating every note with the cunning of a carver in ivory, seems to me so preposterous! For surely song springs from a brooding over past feeling,--I do not mean lost feeling; never from present emotion." "Ah! you would change your mind after having once been. I should strongly advise you to go, if only for once. You ought now, really." "An artist's wife must do without such expensive amusements,--except her husband's pictures be very popular indeed. I might as well cry for the moon. The cost of a box at the opera for a single night would keep my little household for a fortnight." "Ah, well! but you should see 'The Barber,'" he said. "Perhaps if I could hear without seeing, I should like it better," I answered. He fell silent, busying himself with his fish, and when he spoke again turned to the lady on his left. I went on with my dinner. I knew that our host had heard what I said, for I saw him turn rather hastily to his butler.