you hear anything more about him,” he said, “you might let me know. You are a brave young lady to dismiss your admirers so summarily.”
“Perhaps I am quite satisfied with one,” laughing softly.
Laverick told himself that at his age he was behaving like an idiot, nevertheless his eyes across the table expressed his appreciation of her speech.
“Tell me something about yourself, Mr. Laverick,” she begged.
“For instance?”
“First of all, then, how old are you?”
He made a grimace.
“Thirty-eight—thirty-nine my next birthday. Doesn’t that seem grandfatherly to you?”
“You must not be absurd!” she exclaimed. “It is not even middle-aged. Now tell me—how do you spend your time generally? Do you really mean that you go and play cards at your club most evenings?”
“I have a good many friends, and I dine out quite a great deal.”
“You have no sisters?”
“I have no relatives at all in London,” he explained.
“It is to be a real cross-examination,” she warned him.
“I am quite content,” he answered. “Go ahead, but remember, though, that I am a very dull person.”
“You look so young for your years,” she declared. “I wonder, have you ever been in love?”
He laughed heartily.
“About a dozen times, I suppose. Why? Do I seem to you like a misanthrope?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, hesitatingly. “You don’t seem to me as though you cared to make friends very easily. I just felt I wanted to ask you. Have you ever been engaged?”
“Never,” he assured her.
“And when was the last time,” she asked, “that you felt you cared a little for any one?”
“It dates from the day before yesterday,” he declared, filling her glass.
She laughed at him.
“Of course, it is nonsense to talk to you like this!” she said. “You are quite right to make fun of me.”
“On the contrary,” he insisted. “I am very much in earnest.”
“Very well, then,” she answered, “if you are in earnest you shall be in love with me. You shall take me about, give me supper every night, send me some sweets and cigarettes to the theatre—oh, and there are heaps of things you ought to do if you really mean it!” she wound up.
“If those things mean being fond of you,” he answered, “I’ll prove it with pleasure. Sweets, cigarettes, suppers, taxicabs at the stage-door.”
“It all sounds very terrible,” she sighed. “It’s a horrid little life.”
“Yet I suppose you enjoy it?” he remarked tentatively.
“I hate it, but I must do something. I could not live on charity. If I knew any other way I could make money, I would rather, but there is no other way. I tried once to give music lessons. I had a few pupils, but they never paid—they never do pay.
“I wish I could think of something,” Laverick said thoughtfully. “Of course, it is occupation you want. So far as regards the monetary part of it, I still owe your brother a great deal—”
She shook her head, interrupting him with a quick little gesture.
“No, no!” she declared. “I have never complained about Arthur. Sometimes he made me suffer, because I know that he was ashamed of having a relative in the chorus, but I am quite sure that I do not wish to take any of his money—or of anybody else’s,” she added. “I want always to earn my own living.”
“For such a child,” he remarked, smiling, “you are wonderfully independent.”
“Why not?” she answered softly. “It is years since I had any one to do very much for me. Necessity teaches us a good many things. Oh, I was helpless enough when it began!” she added, with a little sigh. “I got over it. We all do. Tell me—who is that woman, and why does she stare so at you?”
Laverick looked across the room. Louise and Bellamy were sitting at the opposite table. The former was strikingly handsome and very wonderfully dressed. Her closely-clinging gown, cut slightly open in front, displayed her marvelous figure. She wore long pearl earrings, and a hat with white feathers which drooped over her fair hair. Laverick recognized her at once.
“It is Mademoiselle Idiale,” he said, “the most wonderful soprano in the world.”
“Why does she look so at you?” Zoe asked.
Laverick shook his head.
“I do not know her,” he said. “I know who she is, of course,—every one does. She is a Servian, and they say that she is devoted to her country. She left Vienna at a moment’s notice, only a few days ago, and they say that it was because she had sworn never to sing again before the enemies of her country. She had been engaged a long time to appear at Covent Garden, but no one believed that she would really come. She breaks her engagements just when she chooses. In fact, she is a very wonderful person altogether.”
“I never saw such pearls in my life,” Zoe whispered. “And how lovely she is! I do not understand, though, why she is so interested in you.”
“She mistakes me for some one, perhaps.”
It certainly seemed probable. Even at that moment she touched her escort upon the arm, and he distinctly looked across at Laverick. It was obvious that he was the subject of her conversation.
“I know the man,” Laverick said. “He was at Harrow with me, and I have played cricket with him since. But I have certainly never met Mademoiselle Idiale. One does not forget that sort of person.”
“Her figure is magnificent,” Zoe murmured wistfully. “Do you like tall women very much, Mr. Laverick?”
“I adore them,” he answered, smiling, “but I prefer small ones.”
“We are very foolish people, you and I,” she laughed. “We came together so strangely and yet we talk such frivolous nonsense.”
“You are making me young again,” he declared.
“Oh, you are quite young enough!” she assured him. “To tell you the truth, I am jealous. Mademoiselle Idiale looks at you all the time. Look at her now. Is she not beautiful?”
There was no doubt about her beauty, but those who were criticising her—and she was by far the most interesting person in the room—thought her a little sad. Though Bellamy was doing his utmost to be entertaining, her eyes seemed to travel every now and then over his head and out of the room. Wherever her thoughts were,
