en----"

"Listen!" she interrupted sharply. "I have troubles enough. Don't add
to them, or I shall be sorry I met you again. I tell you my name is
Thessa. Please remember it."

"Very well," he said, reddening under the rebuke.

She noted the painful colour in his face, then looked elsewhere,
indifferently. Her features remained expressionless for a while. After
a few moments she looked around at him again, and her smile began to
glimmer:

"It's only this," she said; "the girl you met once in your life--the
dancing singing-girl they knew over there--is already an episode to be
forgotten. End her career any way you wish, Garry,--natural death,
suicide--or she can repent and take the veil, if you like--or perish
at sea--only end her.... Please?" she added, with the sweet, trailing
inflection characteristic of her.

He nodded. The girl smiled mischievously.

"Don't nod your head so owlishly and pretend to understand. You don't
understand. Only two or three people do. And I hope they'll believe me
dead, even if you are not polite enough to agree with them."

"How can you expect to maintain your incognito?" he insisted. "There
will be plenty of people in your very first audience----"

"I had a sister, did I not?"

"_Was_ she your sister?--the one who danced with you--the one called
Thessa?"

"No. But the play-bills said she was. Now, I've told you something
that nobody knows except two or three unpleasant devils--" She dropped
her arms on the table and leaned a trifle forward:

"Oh, pouf!" she said. "Don't let's be mysterious and dramatic, you and
I. I'll tell you: I gave that woman the last of my jewels and she
promised to disappear and leave her name to me to use. It was my own
name, anyway, Thessalie Dunois. Now, you know. Be as discreet and nice
as I once found you. Will you?"

"Of course."

"'Of course,'" she repeated, smiling, and with a little twitch of her
shoulders, as though letting fall a burdensome cloak. "Allons! With a
free heart, then! I am Thessalie Dunois; I am here; I am poor--don't
be frightened! I shall not borrow----"

"That's rotten, Thessa!" he said, turning very red.

"Oh, go lightly, please, my friend Garry. I have no claim on you.
Besides, I know men----"

"You don't appear to!"

"Tiens! Our first quarrel!" she exclaimed, laughingly. "This is indeed
serious----"

"If you need aid----"

"No, I don't! Please, why do you scowl at me? Do you then wish I
needed aid? Yours? Allez