As far as Keith could gather, it had something to do with the adventures of the quack Cagliostra in Rome, who was the comic man of the play, and figured in various disguises, the most successful being that of a prominent politician. Cagliostra tries to gain the affections of a young girl beloved by a mountebank called Prince Carnival, who thwarts him all through the play. The second act was the carnival at Rome, and a crowd of masquers were singing a riotous chorus and pelting one another with flowers. Suddenly, during a lull in this fantastic medley, a high, clear voice was heard executing a brilliant shake, and immediately afterwards Caprice bounded gaily on to the stage, singing a melodious waltz song, to which the masquers moved in measured time. She was dressed in a harlequin costume, a mask on her face, a fool's baton in her hand, and innumerable silver bells hanging from her cap and dress, which jingled incessantly as she danced. But what attracted Keith's attention were the diamonds she wore--several stars and a necklace. She seemed one splendid blaze of jewels, and his eyes ached watching their flash and glitter during the rapid gyrations of her restless figure. "Are those paste jewels?" he asked Ezra, in a whisper. "Paste!" echoed that young man, with a soft, satirical laugh. "Caprice wear paste jewels! Ask the men she's ruined where all their thousands went---where all their lands, horses, shares, salaries, disappeared to! Paste! Bah! my dear fellow, you don't know the number of ruined homes and broken hearts those diamonds represent." The act proceeded; the dialogue scintillating with wit, and the choruses becoming more riotous. Intrigue followed after intrigue, and situation after situation, in all of which Caprice was the central figure, until the climax was reached, in a wild bizarre chorus, in which she danced a vigorous cancan with Cagliostra, and finished by bounding on his shoulders to form the tableau as the curtain fell, amid the enthusiastic applause of the audience. Ezra and Stewart went out into the smoking-room to light their cigarettes, and heard on all sides eulogies of Caprice. "She'd make her fortune on the London stage," said Santon to Mortimer. "Got such a lot of the devil in her--eh?--by Jove! Why the deuce don't she show in town?" "Aha!" replied Mortimer shrewdly, "I'm not going to let her go if I can help it. Don't tempt away my only ewe lamb, when you've got so many flocks of your own." "She doesn't look much like a lamb," said Columbus Wilks dryly. "Then she doesn't belie her looks," retorted Mortimer coolly. "My dear sir, she's got the temper of a fiend, but she's such a favourite, that I put up with her tantrums for the sake of the cash."