Armand--wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom will
be but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; but
if it does not, you will see--ah, but just Zoe!"

The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though he
did not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, and
if it was secret, then it was--yes, it was love; and love between his
daughter and that waif of the world--the world of the stage--in which
men and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children at
that--it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should come
to the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. There
would be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shaken
to its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fall
about his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, and
a renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured.

The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of the
madcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed to
carry a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischief
and a gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was a
guitar, not a tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry.

"Where did you get that?" she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice.

"In your room--your bedroom," was the half-frightened answer. "I saw it
on the dresser, and I took it."

"Come, come, let's get on with the charade," urged the Man from Outside.

On the instant's pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost
involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone
else started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror,
of dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed.

His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion.
He caught from the girl's hands the guitar--Carmen's forgotten guitar
which he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With both
hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave
a shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping
jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame.

"Ah, there!" he said savagely. "There--there!" When he turned round
slowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control before
he had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. A
strange, ironic-almost sardonic