"It's a very mysterious business altogether; and the way you're taking it seems to me to be not the least mysterious part of the whole affair--and I can't say that I'm fond of mysteries. However, as some one or other says in a play, though I'm afraid I can't tell you what play, 'Time will show'." When they reached Margaret's rooms they found that Frank Staines and Mr. Winton had arrived already, and were waiting for them at the street door. They all went up together. So soon as they were in the room Mr. Winton asked his question-- "Well, Miss Wallace, is Mrs. Lamb to create Lady Glover?" Had he put to her an inquiry on the answer to which the whole happiness of her life was dependent, it could hardly have moved her more. "Never! never! never!" She repeated the word three times over, with each time an additional emphasis. Mr. Winton, probably accustomed to strenuous utterances on the part of ladies to whom the theatre was the chief end and aim of their existence, appeared to be entertained by her intensity. Putting his hands behind his back he regarded her with smiling face. "And isn't she to produce the play?--that is, if she's willing to do so if she's not to be allowed to play in it?" "She is to have nothing to do with it--nothing." "You appear to have arrived, Miss Wallace, at a decision which is final and conclusive, and to have done so in a very short space of time." "I have." "The matter is placed beyond the pale of my discussion?" "It is." Mr. Winton turned to Harry with a little gesture of amusement. "Then, Talfourd, we shall have to seek for another capitalist, and as that is not a bird which is easy to find, 'The Gordian Knot' will have to be shelved for a still further indefinite period. Let's trust that some of us will live to see it produced." In her turn Margaret faced Harry with an air of penitence. "I'm so sorry, but I would rather that it were never produced at all than that it should owe anything to that woman--and you know how I have set my heart on its success." He tried to comfort her, as if the loss were hers. "'The Gordian Knot' won't spoil by keeping; don't let it trouble you a little bit; dismiss Mrs. Lamb from your mind as if she had never been. She's nothing to you, or to me, or to any of us; she's just--like that!" He snapped his fingers in the air, as if by the action he expressed her valuation. Margaret answered with an enigmatic smile. "Like that? I don't think she'll be to me like that--ever." "But, my dear girl, why not? why not?" "Ah! that I cannot tell you, because I don't know. But I shall know, and, when I do, I daresay I shall wish I didn't." Harry threw up his hands in the air as if it were a case which baffled him. Frank Staines, who had been listening with a twinkle in his eyes, observed-- "I understand, Miss Wallace, that your appearance at Mrs. Lamb's furnished the occasion for quite a dramatic interlude". Margaret moved her shoulders, as if the recollection made her shudder.