"No, Mr. Foster," said Marie. "You just stay here, and don't listen."
The two women disappeared behind the portière, and a faint giggle, soon suppressed, came through the portière from Marie.
I obeyed her orders, but as I had not the advantage of knowing a single person in that outer room, I took myself off for a stroll, in the hope of encountering Rosetta Rosa. Yes, certainly in the hope of encountering Rosetta Rosa! But in none of the thronged chambers did I discover her.
When I came back, the waiting-room for prospective crystal-gazers was empty, and Emmeline herself was just leaving it.
"What!" I exclaimed. "All over?"
"Yes," she said; "Sullivan has sent for me. You see, of course, one has to mingle with one's guests. Only they're really Sullivan's guests."
"And what about me?" I said. "Am I not going to have a look into the crystal?"
I had, as a matter of fact, not the slightest interest in her crystal at that instant. I regarded the crystal as a harmless distraction of hers, and I was being simply jocular when I made that remark. Emmeline, however, took it seriously. As her face had changed when she first saw me in the box at the Opera, and again to-night when she met me and Marie Deschamps on my arm, so once more it changed now.
"Do you really want to?" she questioned me, in her thrilling voice.
My soul said: "It's all rubbish—but suppose there is something in it, after all?"