“Oh, Monsieur Rusoff, how clever of you!” she said. “You are really clairvoyant. So is my maid,--the one like a murderess. Do you know her? No; how should you. Martin was skating with Stella Plympton. And that is important, is it? Don’t tell her mother. She is such a fool, and also she has been trying to pump me. You see, it was I who brought them together. So suitable. I feel dreadfully responsible----“ At this point the Novelette ended, and Lady Sunningdale clapped her hands in a perfunctory manner. “Too heavenly, monster,” she said. “Now play Tum-te-tum. Yes, that one. And is he really going to marry her?” she continued to Karl. “I love being pumped, if I know it. Dear Monica, she pumps like a fire-engine. There is no possibility of mistake. Now, while he is playing this, do tell me all you know.” “My dear lady, you are building on no foundation,” said Karl. “All I know is that he played that to me last night, and played it abominably. To-night he has played it--well, you have heard. And, psychologically, I should like to know what has occurred in the interval.” “Was his playing of it just now very wonderful?” she asked. “Yes; one might venture to say that. And as he has been skating all day, presumably he has not thought much about it. His thinking perhaps has been done for him. And who is Stella Plympton? Wife or maid?” Lady Sunningdale gave a little shriek of laughter. Really people who lived out of the world were much more amusing than those who lived in it. Those who lived in it, it is true, always believed the worst in the absence of definite knowledge; the others, however, made far more startling suggestions. “Next but two on your right,” she whispered. “Dear Monica will have a fit if Stella turns out to be already married.” Karl’s eyes wandered slowly to the right, looking pointedly at many things first, at the cornice of the ceiling, at Martin’s profile, at the slumber of Lord Sunningdale. Then they swept quickly by Stella. She sat there absorbed and radiant, her face flushed with some secret, delicate joy as she watched and listened, hardly knowing whether eyes or ears demanded her attention most. Certainly the music and the musician between them held her in a spell. “She is looking quite her best,” whispered Lady Sunningdale. “How interesting! They have millions, you know--oil-cake, or was it oil-cloth? Oil-something, anyhow, which sounds so rich, and she is the only child. The father is quite impossible, not an ‘h,’ though every one crowds there. One always does if there are millions. So vulgar of one. Dear Monica. We were almost brought up together.” Karl turned round to her. “Dear Lady Sunningdale,” he said, “you are really quite premature if you build anything on what I have said. He played admirably to-night what he played abominably last night. That is absolutely all I know. I should be so sorry if I had suggested anything to you which proved to be without any sort of foundation.”