There was a pause. He was looking down at her from the height of his six feet. The faint, sweet scent of orris root rose up from her warm skin. She was very attractive, dressed in a low-necked gown of that dull, satiny stuff women were wearing now. A thin band of white net was stretched across the top of her breasts; through it he could see the shadowy, arrow-headed groove between; her pendant--pearl bistre and paste--pointed, pointed down to it. He was wrong about Elise and jewellery. That was a throat for pearls and for diamonds. Emeralds. She would be all black and white and sparkling green. A necklace, he thought, wouldn't hang on her; it would be laid out, exposed on that white breast as on a cushion. You could never tell what a woman was really like till you'd seen her in a low-necked gown. It made Mrs. Levitt ten times more alluring. He smiled at her, a tender, brooding, rather fatuous smile. Mrs. Levitt saw that her moment had come. It would be now or never. She must risk it. "I wish," she said, "you'd introduce me to your wife." It was a shock, a horrid blow. It showed plainly that Elise had interests beyond him, that she was not, like him, all for the secret, solitary adventure. Yet perhaps--perhaps--she had planned it; she thought it would be safer for them, more discreet. She looked up at him with the old, irrefutable smile. "Will you?" she pleaded. "Well--I'm not sure that I know where my wife _is_. She was here a minute ago, talking to Lady Corbett." He looked round. A wide screen guarded the door on to the platform. He could see Lady Corbett and Fanny disappearing behind it. "I--I'll go and look for her," he said. He meditated treachery. Treachery to poor Elise. He followed them through the door and down the steps into the concealed corridor. He found Ralph Bevan there. Horace had gone. "I say, Ralph, I wish you'd take Fanny home. She's tired. Get her out of this. I shall be here quite half an hour longer; settling up accounts. You might tell Kimber to come back for me and Miss Madden." Now to get to the entrance you had to pass through the swing door into the hall and down the side aisle to the bottom, so that Mrs. Levitt witnessed Mrs. Waddington's exit with Ralph Bevan. Mr. Waddington. waited till the hall doors had closed on them before he returned. "I can't find my wife anywhere," he said. "She wasn't in the cloak-room, so I think she must have gone back with Horace." Mrs. Levitt would think that Fanny had disappeared while he was looking for her, honourably, in the cloak-room. "I saw her go out," said Mrs. Levitt coldly, "with Mr. Bevan." "I suppose he's taking her home," he said vaguely. His best policy was vagueness. "And now, my dear lady, I wish I could take _you_ home. But I shall be detained here some little time. Still, if you don't mind waiting a minute or two till Kimber comes back with the car, he shall drive you."