John Treverton, who had been standing beside Laura’s chair like a man lost in a waking dream, turned suddenly at this remark. ‘What dancer?’ he asked. ‘La Chicot. Of course you have seen her dance. You happy Londoners see everything under the sun that is worth seeing. She is something wonderful, is she not? And now I suppose I shall never see her.’ ‘She’s a very handsome woman, and a very fine dancer, in her particular style,’ answered Treverton. ‘But what did you mean just now when you talked about her death? She is as much alive as you and I are; at least I know that her name was on all the walls and she was dancing nightly when I left London.’ ‘That was a week ago,’ said Celia. ‘Surely you saw the account of the accident in this morning’s _Times_? There was nearly a column about it.’ ‘I did not look at the _Times_. Mr. Sampson and I started early this morning for a long round. What was this accident?’ ‘Oh, quite too dreadful!’ exclaimed Celia. ‘It made my blood run cold to read the description. It seems that the poor thing had to go up into the flies, or the skies, or something, hooked on to some moveable irons--a kind of telescopic arrangement, you know.’ ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Treverton. ‘Well, of course that would be awfully jolly as long as it was safely done, for she must look lovely floating upwards, with the limelight shining on her; but it seems the man who had the management of the iron machine got tipsy, and did not know what he was doing, so the irons were not properly braced together, and just as she was near the top the thing gave way and she came down headlong.’ ‘And was killed?’ asked John Treverton breathlessly. ‘No, she was not killed on the spot, but her leg was broken--a compound fracture, I think they call it, and she was hurt about the head, and the paper said she was altogether in a very precarious state. Now I have noticed that when a newspaper says that a person is in a precarious state, the next thing one hears of that person is that he or she is dead; so that I shouldn’t at all wonder if La Chicot’s death were in the evening papers.’ ‘What a loss to society!’ sneered Edward Clare. ‘I think you are the most ridiculous girl in the world, Celia, to interest yourself in people who are as far off your groove as if they were the inhabitants of the moon.’ ‘_Homo sum_,’ said Celia, proud of a smattering of Latin, the crumbs that had fallen from her brother’s table, ‘and all the varieties of mankind are interesting to me. I should like to have been a dancer myself, if I had not been a clergyman’s daughter. It must be an awfully jolly life.’ ‘Delightful,’ exclaimed Edward, ‘especially when it ends abruptly through the carelessness of a drunken scene-shifter.’ ‘I must say good-night and good-bye,’ said John Treverton to Laura. ‘I have my portmanteau to pack ready for an early start to-morrow morning. Indeed, I am inclined to go by the mail to-night. It would save me half-a-day.’