Dress was a reigning passion with Lucia, and this day she was doubly absorbed, in spite of the racking state of her mind consequent upon the daring criminal step she had taken the night before. Madam was going first to the opera-house, to excuse herself to the manager, armed with a medical certificate to the effect that she was incapable of singing that evening, from a painful attack of hoarseness. This excuse was in reality not ill-founded, for she had taken a slight chill in her hurried journey the previous night. She felt it would be utterly impossible to sing that evening. As it was, her hands were trembling from nervous excitement; the faintest sound, if unexpected, made her start with trepidation; her eyes and cheeks were aflame. Had it not been that she was remarkably abstemious, Finette would have suspected madam to be suffering from the effects of an overdose of champagne. The second place to which she was bound was a garden-party, where she had smilingly promised her princely adorer she would show herself for at least a few minutes. “If I go on at this rate,” the signora thought at last, “I shall be ill. Come what may, I must brace up my nerves, and try to compose myself. It would be ruin to my hopes if I fell ill just now.” She shuddered as she fancied she might be seized with fever, and lose her wits, perhaps, and betray in her wanderings the crime of which she had been guilty within these past twenty-four hours. At length she was arrayed, all save the right-hand glove; but she could not stay to put that on now, lest she should be too late at the opera-house to enable the manager to make other arrangements for the night. The little white hands were loaded with blazing jewels, that sparkled and flashed in the light; but she no longer wore the fatal diamond ring that had scratched Gilardoni, the valet, on the wrist. As she swept down the richly carpeted stairs, her movements signalized by the soft frou-frou of her Parisian garments, she meditated chiefly on the impending storm between herself and the director. She floated down to the door, followed by Finette, who was carrying the tiny bundle of floss silk, the denomination of which appeared to be Bébé. The door was held open by a lackey, in a plain but exceedingly elegant livery. Madam hated all the male servants in her own and other people’s houses, for they often reminded her of the position to which had sunk the man whose legal wife she was. But there was nothing in the sweetly modulated accents, and in the absent, preoccupied eyes of the beautiful mistress of the house to betray any feeling either way toward the domestic as she said: “I shall be home about six. Dinner at seven.” The servant bowed, though a lightninglike glance at Finette behind the signora’s back indicated surprise, for if madam dined at seven, she evidently did not mean to go to the opera, at all events as a performer.