rimitive to think useless danger attractive; but
if danger stood between him and anything he wanted very much, he could
be as reckless as an Irishman or a Cossack--which is saying all there
is to be said.

The motor tooted and whizzed itself from Mrs. Rushmore's gate to the
stage entrance of the Opera in something like thirty minutes without
the slightest strain, and could have covered the distance in much less
time if necessary.

Logotheti found Schreiermeyer sitting alone in the dusk, in the stalls.
Half the footlights and one row of border lights illuminated the stage,
and a fat man in very light grey clothes, a vast white waistcoat and a
pot hat was singing 'Salut demeure' in a nasal half-voice to the tail
of the Commendatore's white horse, from _Don Juan_. The monumental
animal had apparently stopped to investigate an Egyptian palm tree
which happened to grow near the spot usually occupied by Marguerite's
cottage. The tenor had his hands in his pockets, his hat was rather on
the back of his head, and he looked extremely bored.

So did Schreiermeyer when Logotheti sat down beside him. He turned his
round glasses to the newcomer with a slight expression of recognition
which was not perceptible at all in the gloom, and then he looked at
the stage again, without a word. The tenor had heard somebody moving in
the house, and he stuck a single glass in his eye and peered over the
footlights into the abyss, thinking the last comer might be a woman, in
which case he would perhaps have condescended to sing a little louder
and better. A number of people were loafing on the stage, standing up
or sitting on the wooden steps of somebody's enchanted palace, but
Logotheti could not see Margaret amongst them.

The conductor of the orchestra rapped sharply on his desk, the music
ceased suddenly and he glared down at an unseen offender.

'D sharp!' he said, as if he were swearing at the man.

'I believe they hire their band from the deaf and dumb asylum,'
observed the tenor very audibly, but looking vaguely at the plaster
tail of the horse.

Some of the young women at the back of the stage giggled obsequiously
at this piece of graceful wit, but the orchestra manifested its
indignation by hissing. Thereupon the director rapped on his desk more
noisily than ever.

'_Da capo_,' he said, and the bows began to scrape and quiver again.

The tenor only hummed his part now, picking bits of straw out of the
plaster tail and examini