He had seen Linnet, too, and there came the unkindest cut of all; for he recognised at once that the girl he had described to Will Deverill as beneath his exalted notice since he rose to the front ranks of the profession at the London Pavilion, was now so much above him that she scarcely thought of him at all, and evidently regarded him only in the light of the man who had threatened her husband’s life when they came to England. Yes; Linnet thought nothing of him now; how could you expect it to be otherwise? She had money and rank and position at her feet; was it likely, being a woman, she would care greatly, when things were thus, for a music-hall singer who earned as much in six months as she herself could earn in one easy fortnight? And yet . . . Franz rose, and gazed abstractedly at his own face in the glass over the mantelpiece. No fault to find there! Many women did worse. He was excellently pleased with his black moustache, his flashing dark eyes, his well-turned figure; he even thought not ill of his blazing blue necktie. And Andreas was fifty if he was a day, Franz felt sure; old Andreas with his solid cut, his square-set shoulders, his steely-grey eyes, his heavy, unimpassioned, inexpressive countenance! _Ach_, if only he himself had the money to cut a dash—the mere wretched rhino—the miserable oof—for Franz had lived long enough in England now to have picked up a choice collection of best British slang—he might stand a chance still against that creature Andreas! It was one o’clock by this time, though Franz had only just risen from his morning coffee. What would you have? A professional man must needs sing till late at night, and take his social pleasures at his _café_ afterwards. So Franz was seldom in bed till two or three in the morning, recouping himself next day by sleeping on till mid-day. ’Twas the hour of the promenade. He went into his bedroom, doffed his flannel smoking-coat, and arrayed himself in the cheaply-fashionable broadcloth suit in which it was his wont to give the daily treat of seeing him to the girls in Bond Street. Then he lighted a bad cigar, and strolled out towards Piccadilly. At the Circus, he met a friend, an English betting man, who was a constant patron of the London Pavilion. “Hello, Fred!” he cried, with a start, “how spruce you look to-day! Ze favourite must have lost. You have ze appearance of ze man who is flush of money. And yet, ze winter, is it not your off season?”