“I think we’d better go back to the theater,” Florence murmured. De Medici gave the direction. “Well,” she smiled as they started again, “from a literary point of view your proposal has been a decided failure. I rather expected something—bizarre.” “Give me time,” De Medici smiled. “I’ll improve. But why to the theater now?” “There’s a matinée today.” He frowned. “You don’t mean you’re going to play this afternoon?” “Are you insane? Of course I am.” “And let that bounder Mitchell make love to you in the second act ... after this?” “I swear you’re out of your head, Julien.” “You kiss him,” he growled. “You wrote the play, my dear.” “Hm.” He looked at her whimsically thoughtful. “I’ll rewrite it. The kiss isn’t necessary. I’ll go back and take it out. You don’t have to kiss him. You can just look at him—with feigned tenderness. It’ll be enough. How do you suppose I’m going to feel watching you embrace that bounder and kiss him every night?” “You told me last week I did the part wonderfully,” she smiled. They were in front of the theater. De Medici held her arm. “When shall I see you again?” he asked. “I promised to have dinner with Fedya this evening. Why don’t you go and help father arrange his party and call for me after the performance tonight?” De Medici nodded. He appeared to have grown speechless. He looked with infatuated silence at the girl. Then, with a sigh, he bowed, removing his fedora and placing it cavalierly over his heart. “Until we meet again, beloved,” he whispered and, turning, walked away. The girl stood where he had left her, her dark eyes following his figure until it was lost in the crowd. An expression of despair had come to her face. Sorrow and uncertainty seemed to claim her. She stepped forward as if to recall the vanishing Julien. Then, changing her mind, she turned and walked to the foyer. She entered the empty theater with tears glistening in her dark eyes. CHAPTER III MURDER In which Julien De Medici collides with a tantalizing corpse—In which a dagger, a candlestick, a crucifix, and a false beard mumble incoherently. Promptly at ten o’clock that night De Medici walked distractedly into the stage entrance of the Galt Theater. He had spent the day in a fever of expectancy. A memory had followed him like an offensive companion. “She was crying when I went away. She stood looking after me and wept.” He had watched Florence unseen by her during the few minutes she hesitated white-faced and weeping in front of the theater after his farewell. “I’m a fool,” he argued with himself. “She was excited, overwrought. She loves me. And perhaps there’s something she’ll tell me later.” He had offered his services to his friend Ballau after dinner. “There’s nothing you can do except mess up things,” Ballau remonstrated. “I suggest a long, fatiguing walk.”