in the room, the piano, the portrait, the
table, sketched a gesture.

"We are all in jail. The opinion of the world is a prison, our own ideas
are another. We are doubly jailed, and very justly. We are depraved
animals. We think, or think we think, and what we think others have
thought for us and, as a rule, erroneously."

From a phonograph somewhere, in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor
aria, the _Bella figlia del amore_, pierced suddenly and beautifully by
a contralto's rich voice.

Jones turned. "That's Caruso. I don't know who the Maddelena is. Do you
remember Campanini?"

"Yes, I remember him. He was a better actor than Caruso."

"And so ugly that he was good-looking. Caruso is becoming uneven."

Vaguely the musician considered the novelist. "You think so?"

"It rather looked that way last night."

Angelo Cara plucked again at the rug.

"But," Jones continued, "in the 'Terra addio' he made up for it. What an
enchantment that duo is!"

The musician's hand moved from the rug to his face. "You were there
then?"

I was this morning, thought Jones, but he said: "How sinful Rigoletto is
by comparison to Aida--by comparison I mean to the last act."

The other duo now had become a quartette. The voices of Gilda and
Rigoletto were fusing with those of the figlia and the duke.

The musician appeared to be listening. His sunken eyes were lifted.
Slowly he turned them on Jones.

"You didn't see anything, did you?"

"Last night? I did not see Lennox, if that is what you mean, or
Paliser--except for a moment, during the crypt scene."

Chokingly the musician drew breath. In the effort he gasped. "Then you
know."

"Yes, I know."

The rug rose and fell. It was as though there were a wave beneath it.

With an air of detachment, Jones added: "Paliser turned to see who was
there. A sword-cane told him."

The musician's lips twitched, his face had contracted, his hand now was
on his breast. "I wish Cassy would hurry. She's gone for amyl."

"Is it far?"

"The corner. Are you going to do anything?"

Jones shook his head. "I don't need to."

The sunken eyes were upon him. "Why do you say that?"

"You are an honest man."

The sunken eyes wavered. "At least I never supposed they would arrest
Lennox. How could I?"

"No one could have supposed it. Besides, in your own conscience you were
justified, were you not?"

"You know about that, too?"

"Yes, I know about that."

The Rigoletto disc now ha