ying to catch your eye on the platform. Of
course it was no go!"

The speech was thrown at me in a light, airy tone from a tiny, pert
mouth which glistened red behind a muslin veil.

"Miss Deschamps!" I exclaimed.

"Glad you remember my name. As handsome and supercilious as ever, I
observe. I haven't seen you since that night at Sullivan's reception.
Why didn't you call on me one Sunday? You know I asked you to."

"Did you ask me?" I demanded, secretly flattered in the extremity of
my youthfulness because she had called me supercilious.

"Well, rather. I'm going to Paris--and in this weather!"

"I am, too."

"Then, let's go together, eh?"

"Delighted. But why have you chosen such a night?"

"I haven't chosen it. You see, I open to-morrow at the Casino de
Paris for fourteen nights, and I suppose I've got to be there. You
wouldn't believe what they're paying me. The Diana company is touring
in the provinces while the theatre is getting itself decorated. I hate
the provinces. Leeds and Liverpool and Glasgow--fancy dancing there!
And so my half-sister--Carlotta, y'know--got me this engagement, and
I'm going to stay with her. Have you met Carlotta?"

"No--not yet." I did not add that I had had reason to think a good
deal about her.

"Well, Carlotta is--Carlotta. A terrific swell, and a bit of a Tartar.
We quarrel every time we meet, which isn't often. She tries to play
the elder sister game on me, and I won't have it. Though she is
elder--very much elder, you now. But I think her worst point is that
she's so frightfully mysterious. You can never tell what she's up to.
Now, a man I met at supper last night told me he thought he had seen
Carlotta in Bloomsbury yesterday. However, I didn't believe that,
because she is expecting me in Paris; we happen to be as thick as
thieves just now, and if she had been in London, she would have looked
me up."

"Just so," I replied, wondering whether I should endeavor to obtain
from Marie Deschamps information which would be useful to Rosa.

By the time that the star of the Diana had said goodbye to certain
male acquaintances, and had gone through a complicated dialogue with
her maid on the subject of dress-trunks, the clock pointed almost to
nine, and a porter rushed us--Marie and myself--into an empty
compartment of a composite coach near to the engine. The compartment
was first class, but it evidently belonged to an ancient order of
rolling stock, and the vivacious Marie c