"Vulgar and offensive," he said, almost as if to himself, and with a sort of passion. "Vulgar and offensive!"

Suddenly he turned away and went out of the box.

"I say--"

Lady Holme, who had been watching Sir Donald's disordered exit, looked round to Leo.

"I say--" he repeated. "What's up with pater?"

"He doesn't seem to be enjoying the play."

Leo Ulford looked unusually grave, even thoughtful, as if he were pondering over some serious question. He kept his blue eyes fixed upon Lady Holme. At last he said, in a voice much lower than usual:

"Poor chap!"

"Who's a poor chap?"

Leo jerked his head towards the door.

"Your father? Why?"

"Why--at his age!"

The last words were full of boyish contempt.

"I don't understand."

"Yes, you do. To be like that at his age. What's the good? As if--" He smiled slowly at her. "I'm glad I'm young," he said.

"I'm glad you're young too," she answered. "But you're quite wrong about Sir Donald."

She let her eyes rest on his. He shook his head.

"No, I'm not. I guessed it that day at the Carlton. All through lunch he looked at you."

"But what has all this to do with Miss Schley's performance?"

"Because she's something like you, but low down, where you'd never go."

He drew his chair a little closer to hers.

"Would you?" he added, almost in a whisper.

Mr. Laycock, who was in raptures over Miss Schley's performance, had got up to speak to Fritz, but found the latter being steadily hypnotised by Mrs. Leo's trumpet, which went up towards his mouth whenever he opened it. He bellowed distracted nothings but could not make her hear, obtaining no more fortunate result than a persistent flutter of pink eyelids, and a shrill, reiterated "The what? The what?"

A sharp tap came presently on the box door, and Mrs. Wolfstein's painted face appeared. Lord Holme sprang up with undisguised relief.

"What d'you think of Pimpernel? Ah, Mr. Laycock--I heard your faithful hands."

"Stunnin'!" roared Lord Holme, "simply stunnin'!"

"Stunnin'! stunnin'!" exclaimed Mr. Laycock; "Rippin'! There's no other word. Simply rippin'!"

"The what? The what?" cried Mrs. Ulford.

Mrs. Wolfstein bent down, with expansive affection, over Lady Holme's chair, and clasped the left hand which Lady Holme carelessly raised to a level with her shoulder.

"You dear person! Nice of you to come, and in such a gown too! The angels wear white lace thrown together by Victorine--it is Victorine? I was certain!--I'm sure. D'you like Pimpernel?"

Her too lustrous eyes--even Mrs. Wolfstein's eyes looked over-dressed--devoured Lady Holme, and her large, curving features were almost riotously interrogative.

"Yes," Lady Holme said. "Quite."

"She's startled everybody."

"Startled!--why?"

"Oh, well--she has! There's money in it, don't you think?"

"Henry," who had accompanied his wife, and who was standing sideways at the back of the box looking like a thief in the night, came a step forward at the mention of money.

"I'm afraid I'm no judge of that. Your husband would know better."

"Plenty of money," said "Henry," in a low voice that seemed to issue from the bridge of his nose; "it ought to bring a good six thousand into the house for the four weeks. That's--for Miss Schley--for the Syndicate--ten per cent. on the gross, and twenty-five per cent.--"

He found himself in mental arithmetic.

"The--swan with the golden eggs!" said Lady Holme, lightly, turning once more to Leo Ulford. "You mustn't kill Miss Schley."

Mrs. Wolfstein looked at Mr. Laycock and murmured to him:

"Pimpernel does any killing that's going about--for herself. What d'you say, Franky?"

They went out of the box together, followed by "Henry," who was still buzzing calculations, like a Jewish bee.

Lord Holme resolutely tore himself from the ear-trumpet, and was preparing to follow, with the bellowed excuse that he was "sufferin'

from toothache" and had been ordered to "do as much smokin' as possible," when the curtain rose on the second act.

Miss Schley was engaged to a supper-party that evening and did not wish to be late. Lord Holme sat down again looking scarcely pleasant.

"Do as much--the what?" cried Mrs. Ulford, holding the trumpet at right angles to her pink face.

Leo Ulford leant backwards and hissed "Hush!" at her. She looked at him and then at Lady Holme, and a sudden expression of old age came into her bird-like face and seemed to overspread her whole body. She dropped the trumpet and touched the diamonds that glittered in the front of her low gown with trembling hands.

Mr. Laycock slipped into the box when the curtain had been up two or three minutes, but Sir Donald did not return.

"I b'lieve he's bolted," Leo whispered to Lady Holme. "Just like him."

"Why?"