Back in her bedroom, she continued, pausing from time to time to shriek at her maid: "Teddy, you do me so much good—you take my mind off.... Victorine, _tu m’assassine_! ... Teddy, they will think me beautiful, _hein_? You will stay—you will talk to me until I go?" "Wish I could," said Beecher, to whom this peep behind the scenes was novel. "The deuce is, I’m dining with Mrs. Fontaine—going in her box." "And Chartèrs—she is going too?" "I don’t know." "What—you don’t know?" she said, emerging, a shawl of shaded luminous greens flung over the shoulder of a russet taffeta. She seized him by the chin with the savage gesture of the Bohemian. "You lie to me! You love her—and you know!" Then, slipping on the sofa beside him, half playful, half feline, she pleaded: "Tell me, Teddy—tell me just to distract me. Be a nice boy—you see how nervous I am—please!" Beecher did not resist. He recounted lightly, making little of the few passages at arms between him and Nan Charters, ending with a droll reproduction of his laughing exit, cured and disillusionized. "Ah, my poor Teddy!" said Emma Fornez, shaking her head. "Everything you say proves what I feared." "What?" "You are in love; you are beyond hope! "What, after I’ve told you this?" "Exactly. She asked you to telephone, you didn’t. Why? Because you are in love—you are afraid." "Emma, I will tell you the truth," he said, with an excusing shrug. "Aha!" "I was attracted—" "Good!" "But I saw what an idiot I would be." "Very good!" "I am completely cured, and if I didn’t telephone, it is—" "Because you are in love," said Emma promptly. "Nonsense!" "You will see her tomorrow; if not, day after tomorrow. And the longer you stay away, the worse for you." The arrival of Spinetti, the conductor, to run over a last few points, broke in upon this interesting discussion. Beecher departed, after a promise to come behind after the second act with a budget of news. He returned to his rooms, undisturbed by the charges of Emma Fornez. "I haven’t thought of her the whole day," he said contentedly. "If I didn’t telephone, it’s because—well, because—what’s the use? I have other things more interesting to do." In his apartment he found McKenna waiting for him, in company with Gunther, who was already dressed for dinner at Mrs. Fontaine’s. "Hello, McKenna," he said, surprised. "What’s up?" The two had been discussing energetically, and the little difficult hesitation told him that he himself had been the subject of conversation. "I’m called off on an important case," said McKenna. "Thought I’d better have an understanding with you first." "What understanding?" he said. His eye was attracted by the heaped-up mail on a side table, and he moved over to examine it, with a curiosity, utterly illogical, to see if Miss Charters had written him. "Mr. Beecher, I have a request to make of you," said McKenna quickly. "What’s that?"