said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if
what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me."

Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation
which only the tormented know.

Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a
girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking,
unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became
her.

Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her
mother and looked at the girl.

"What is she singing?"

Paliser covered her with his eyes. "Verdi's _Segreto per esser
felice_--the secret of happiness. Such a simple secret too."

"Yes?" Margaret absently returned. She was looking now at the booth.
Quite as vaguely she added: "In what does it consist?"

"In getting what we do not deserve."

There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which
already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her.
Annoyedly she turned.

Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-a-brac is very banal. Perhaps you
prefer Strauss. His dissonances are more harmonic than they sound."

Now though there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased
and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the
audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling.
She looked cheerful and evil.

"I do believe that's the Tamburini," Mrs. Austen remarked. "I heard her
at the Academy, ages ago." The usual touch followed. "How she has gone
off!"

The fat woman stood up, and, preceded by the girl, descended into the
audience.

Margaret looked again at the booth. Lennox was coming out. He said a
word to Miss Bleecker and glanced about the room.

Margaret motioned. He did not notice. The girl who had been singing was
bearing down on him, a hand outstretched and, in her face, an expression
which Margaret could not interpret. But she saw Lennox smile, take her
hand and say--what? Margaret could not tell, but it was something to
which the girl was volubly replying.

"Who's his little friend?" Mrs. Austen in her even voice inquired. "Mr.
Paliser," she added. "Would you mind telling--er--my daughter's young
man that we are waiting."

Margaret winced. She had turned from Paliser and she turned then from
her mother.

Paliser, whom the phrase "my daughter's young man" amused, sauntered
away. He strolled on to where Lennox stood with the girl.