"I shall accept it, then," I said.
She pulled out a tiny gold watch, glistening with diamonds.
"It is half-past one," she said. "We might be there in ten minutes.
You don't mind it being late, I suppose. We singers, you know, have
our own hours."
In the foyer we had to wait while the carriage was called. I stood
silent, and perhaps abstracted, at her elbow, absorbed in the pride
and happiness of being so close to her, and looking forward with a
tremulous pleasure to the drive through London at her side. She was
dressed in gray, with a large ermine-lined cloak, and she wore no
ornaments except a thin jewelled dagger in her lovely hair.
All at once I saw that she flushed, and, following the direction of
her eyes, I beheld Sir Cyril Smart, with a startled gaze fixed
immovably on her face. Except the footmen and the attendants attached
to the hotel, there were not half a dozen people in the entrance-hall
at this moment. Sir Cyril was nearly as white as the marble floor. He
made a step forward, and then stood still. She, too, moved towards
him, as it seemed, involuntarily.
"Good evening, Miss Rosa," he said at length, with a stiff
inclination. She responded, and once more they stared at each other. I
wondered whether they had quarrelled again, or whether both were by
some mischance simultaneously indisposed. Surely they must have
already met during the evening at the Opera!
Then Rosa, with strange deliberation, put her hand to her hair and
pulled out the jewelled dagger.
"Sir Cyril," she said, "you seem fascinated by this little weapon. Do
you recognize it?"
He made no answer, nor moved, but I noticed that his hands were
tightly clenched.
"You do recognize it, Sir Cyril?"
At last he nodded.
"Then take it. The dagger shall be yours. To-night, within the last
minute, I think I have suddenly discovered that, next to myself, you
have the best right to it."
He opened his lips to speak, but made no sound.
"See," she said. "It is a real dagger, sharp and pointed."
Throwing back her cloak with a quick gesture, she was about to prick
the skin of her left arm between the top of her long glove and the
sleeve of her low-cut dress. But Sir Cyril, and I also, jumped to stop
her.
"Don't do that," I said. "You might hurt yourself."
She glanced at me, angry for the instant; but her anger dissolved in
an icy smile.
"Take it, Sir Cyril, to please me."
Her intonation was decidedly peculiar.
And Sir Cyril took the dagger.
"Miss Rosa's carriage," a commissionaire shouted, and, beckoning to
me, the girl moved imperiously down the steps to the courtyard. There
was no longer a smile on her face, which had a musing and withdrawn
expression. Sir Cyril stood stock-still, holding the dagger. What the
surrounding lackeys thought of this singular episode I will not guess.
Indeed, the longer I live, the less I care to meditate upon what
lackeys do think. But that the adventures of their employers provide
them with ample food for thought there can be no doubt.