“Mephisto! I know his parlour tricks ... though it would only be just, perhaps, to say he did foresee our separation some time before it occurred.” “Oh, how extraordinary.” “Once as I was making ready to pay some calls, in order to frighten me, he caused the hare’s foot on my toilet-table to leave its carton sheath and go skipping about the room.” “Whatever did you do?” “My dear, I was disgusted. It really seemed as if the whole of Womanhood was outraged. So, to _punish_ him—for revenge—instead of going to a number of houses that day, I went to only one.” “There wouldn’t be time?” “I shall always blame myself....” “Why?” But a lanthorn falling in flames just then above them put an end to the conversation. “That’s the second I’ve seen drop,” Miss May Mant exclaimed, darting up. “What have you been up to?” “Having my bumps examined.” “What!” “By the masked professor.... Oh, the things he said; only fancy, he told me I’d cause the death of one both near and dear; Ita’s near ...; but she certainly isn’t dear—odious cat.” “He must have thought you curiously credulous,” Miss Sinquier murmured, turning her head aside. To her annoyance she perceived the scholarly representative of the _Dispatch_—a man of prodigious size—leaning solidly on a gold-headed cane while appraising her to Sir Oliver Dawtry, from her bebandeaued head to her jewelly shoes. “She reminds me just a little of someone _de l’Évangile_,” she could hear the great critic say. “Sylvester!” “Oh?” “Should he speak,” Mrs. Sixsmith murmured, wincing at the summer lightning that flickered every now and then, “don’t forget the mediæval nightie or the Mechlin lace! Five long yards—a cloud....” Miss Sinquier buried her lips in her flowers. Through the barred windows of the convent opposite, certain novices appeared to be enjoying a small saltation among themselves. Up and down the corridor to the yearning melody of the minstrel players they twirled, clinging to one another in an ecstasy of delight. Her fine eyes looked beautiful as, raising them fraught with soul, they met the veteran critic’s own. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XV “OH, dear God, help me. Hear me, Jesu. Hear me and forgive me and be offended not if what I ask is vain ... soften all hostile hearts and let them love me—adore me!—oh Heaven, help me to please. Vouchsafe at each _finale_ countless curtains; and in the ‘Potion Scene,’ oh Lord, pull me through....” Unwilling to genuflect in the presence of her maid, who would interpret any unwontedness of gesture for first-night symptoms of fear, Miss Sinquier lifted her face towards the bluish light of day that filtered obliquely through the long glass-plating above. “There’s a cat on the skylight, Smith,” was what she said as her maid with a telegram recalled her wandering gaze to earth. It was a telegram from her father.