but really I want you to do more than that. I want you to go with me
to poor Alresca's. He is progressing satisfactorily, so far as I can
judge, but the dear fellow is thoroughly depressed. I saw him this
afternoon, and he wished, if I met you here to-night, that I should
bring you to him. He has a proposition to make to you, and I hope you
will accept it."

"I shall accept it, then," I said.

She pulled out a tiny gold watch, glistening with diamonds.

"It is half-past one," she said. "We might be there in ten minutes.
You don't mind it being late, I suppose. We singers, you know, have
our own hours."

In the foyer we had to wait while the carriage was called. I stood
silent, and perhaps abstracted, at her elbow, absorbed in the pride
and happiness of being so close to her, and looking forward with a
tremulous pleasure to the drive through London at her side. She was
dressed in gray, with a large ermine-lined cloak, and she wore no
ornaments except a thin jewelled dagger in her lovely hair.

All at once I saw that she flushed, and, following the direction of
her eyes, I beheld Sir Cyril Smart, with a startled gaze fixed
immovably on her face. Except the footmen and the attendants attached
to the hotel, there were not half a dozen people in the entrance-hall
at this moment. Sir Cyril was nearly as white as the marble floor. He
made a step forward, and then stood still. She, too, moved towards
him, as it seemed, involuntarily.