"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.

"Good evening, Miss Rosa," he said at length, with a stiff

inclination. She responded, and once more they stared at each other. I

wondered whether they had quarrelled again, or whether both were by

some mischance simultaneously indisposed. Surely they must have

already met during the evening at the Opera!

Then Rosa, with strange deliberation, put her hand to her hair and

pulled out the jewelled dagger.

"Sir Cyril," she said, "you seem fascinated by this little weapon. Do

you recognize it?"

He made no answer, nor moved, but I noticed that his hands were

tightly clenched.

"You do recognize it, Sir Cyril?"

At last he nodded.

"Then take it. The dagger shall be yours. To-night, within the last

minute, I think I have suddenly discovered that, next to myself, you

have the best right to it."

He opened his lips to speak, but made no sound.

"See," she said. "It is a real dagger, sharp and pointed."

Throwing back her cloak with a quick gesture, she was about to prick

the skin of her left arm between the top of her long glove and the

sleeve of her low-cut dress. But Sir Cyril, and I also, jumped to stop

her.

"Don't do that," I said. "You might hurt yourself."

She glanced at me, angry for the instant; but her anger dissolved in

an icy smile.

"Take it, Sir Cyril, to please me."

Her intonation was decidedly peculiar.

And Sir Cyril took the dagger.

"Miss Rosa's carriage," a commissionaire shouted, and, beckoning to

me, the girl moved imperiously down the steps to the courtyard. There

was no longer a smile on her face, which had a musing and withdrawn

expression. Sir Cyril stood stock-still, holding the dagger. What the

surrounding lackeys thought of this singular episode I will not guess.

Indeed, the longer I live, the less I care to meditate upon what

lackeys do think. But that the adventures of their employers provide

them with ample food for thought there can be no doubt.




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