"I'm sure I didn't mean--I beg your pardon--"

"It's all right. If I were an actor I shouldn't be ashamed of it. But I
was merely curious to know whether you shared the prevalent superstition.
I'm afraid I can't help you from a knowledge of the stage, but if I can
be of use, from a sort of amateur interest in psychology, with an affair
like this I shall be only too glad."

"Thank you," she said, somewhat faintly, with an effect of dismay
disproportionate to the occasion.

She sank into a chair before which she had been standing, and she looked
as if she were going to swoon.

He started towards her with an alarmed "Miss Shirley."

She put out a hand weakly to stay him. "Don't!" she entreated.
"I'm a little--I shall be all right in a moment."

"Can't I get you something--call some one?"

"Not for the world!" she commanded, and she pulled herself together and
stood up. "But I think I'll stop for to-night. I'm glad my idea strikes
you favorably. It's merely--Oh, you found it, Mrs. Stager!" She broke
off to address the woman who had now come back and was holding up the
trailing breadths of the electric-blue gauze. "Isn't it lovely?"
She gave herself time to adore the drapery, with its changes of meteoric
lucence, before she rose and took it. She went with it to the background
in the library, where, against the glass door of the cases, she involved