A door opened and Fallaray came out,—his shoulders rounded, his Savonarola face pale and lined with sleeplessness. At the sight of the charming little figure in evening dress he drew up. Mrs. Malwood perhaps, or another of Feo’s friends. She was entertaining again, of course. And Lola trembled like a frightened bird, with great tears welling from her eyes. Fallaray was puzzled. This child did not look like one of Feo’s friends,—and why was she crying? He knew the face, he remembered those wide-apart eyes. They had followed him into his work, into his dreams,—de Brézé, de Brézé,—the Savoy, the Concert. He held out his hand. “Madame de Brézé,” he said, “what have they done to you?” And she shook her head again, trembling violently. And Fallaray, with the old curious tingle running through his veins, was helpless. If she wouldn’t tell him what was the matter, what was he to do? He imagined that some flippancy or some sarcasm had wounded this astonishing girl and she had fled from the drawing-room and lost her way. But women were unknown to him, utter strangers, and he was called to work. He said, “My wife’s room is there,” stood irresolute for a moment, although his brain was filled with the songs of birds, and bowed and went away. And when Lola heard the street door close, she moved like a bird shot through the wings, fumbled her way to the passage which led to her servant’s bedroom and flung herself face downwards upon her bed. What was it in her that did these things to every man,—except Fallaray? PART VI I To Ellingham’s entire satisfaction, Feo did not sit out the performance at the Adelphi. She left in the middle of the second act. It was not a piece demanding any sort of concentration. That was not its métier. It was one of those rather pleasant, loosely made things, bordering here and there on burlesque, in which several comedians have been allotted gaps to fill between songs which, repeated again and again, give a large chorus of pretty girls an opportunity of wearing no dress longer than five minutes or lower than the knees. But Feo’s mind was wandering. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with disappointment. She agreed with the adage that if you can’t make a mistake you can’t make anything. But this last one, which had taken the Macquarie person into her circle of light, proved to her that she was losing not only her sense of perspective but her sense of humor. It rankled; and it continued to rankle all through the jokes and songs and horseplay of the company behind the footlights that Saturday night.