personality could vie with hers in strangeness, or in the
illusive quality of her ever-changing expression. She was
vivacity incarnate and, to the ordinary observer, light as
thistledown in fibre and in feeling. But not to all. To those who
watched her long, there came moments--say when the music rose to
heights of greatness--when the mouth so given over to laughter
took on curves of the rarest sensibility, and a woman's lofty
soul shone through her odd, bewildering features.

Driscoll had noted this, and consequently awaited her reply in
secret hope.

It came in the form of a question and only after an instant's
display of displeasure or possibly of pure nervous irritability.

"What has she done?"

"Nothing. But slander is in the air, and any day it may ripen
into public accusation."

"Accusation of what?" Her tone was almost pettish.

"Of--of theft," he murmured. "On a great scale," he emphasized,
as the music rose to a crash.

"Jewels?"

"Inestimable ones. They are always returned by somebody. People
say, by me."