"Nothing at all," I answered promptly. "That is the way with him," she ruminated. "His agents never know anything." "That does not, I trust, prevent my finding great pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mademoiselle," I ventured. She looked at me curiously. Sixty seconds ago I should have described her as being, off the stage, disappointedly plain. I realised my mistake. "It does not prevent your paying me any compliments you choose," she replied. "There is no reason why we should not be friends--even comrades. The only cloud between us appears to be that it will fall to your lot to kill the only man I have ever really cared for." I started in my chair. "I can assure you," I told her, "I am not out for that sort of thing at all." "But it will come," she persisted. "It will not," I contradicted her firmly. "I have done all the killing I want to, in fair fighting. I have a weakness for adventures, but nothing would induce me to become an assassin." She looked at me contemplatively, leaning across from her chair with her chin balanced upon her hands. Then she got up and brought me a queer round wooden box of fragrant Russian cigarettes. She herself lit one, and I followed her example. "Are you afraid, dear earnest Englishman," she asked, "that I should hate you? Let me tell you the truth. For this man I have no love any more. And he must die." "He may live or he may die," I answered, "but I am no man's executioner." "We shall see," she remarked indifferently. "You are a just man, beyond a doubt, but I like you. You are different from all others." "In what respect?" I enquired. "I admit you here," she replied, "to the intimacy of a private visit, yet you have not yet suggested that you should become my lover. It intrigues me, this diffidence." I felt a sudden desire to get out of the room. She laughed at me, laughed with simple, unaffected mirth, laughed till she came over and laid her hands upon my shoulders. "Go away, dear man," she begged, "before I make myself foolish about you. You shall sit at my side to-night, and perhaps then, when you see what others think of me, you may whisper different things." "And where do I sit by your side to-night?" I asked. "You and your two friends," she said, "sup with me in the restaurant downstairs at midnight. Convey my compliments and this invitation to your charming lady companion. I shall see her at the theatre and will confirm it." She gave me her fingers and held them for a moment against my lips. Then I went out, a little dazed. I began to fear that Naida was going to make trouble for me. At the theatre that evening she demanded my constant attendance. Twice she sent notes to my dressing room, and in the midst of the tumultuous applause which followed her wonderful dancing, when she stood in the wings with us after her seventh recall, she tore one of the red roses which had been thrown on to the stage from its cluster, and thrust it in my buttonhole.