As she spoke, the door behind the swinging portières opened slightly, unperceived by any one except Miss James, over whose face the same sneering smile crept out again. Miss Hildreth looked up at Mrs. Newbold with defiance in her eyes and on her lips.
"My dear Esther, surely you are a little too dramatic. Why should not I gratify Miss Dick's romantic inquisitiveness? Her name—the name of this woman—was—is—well, let us call it Adèle Lallovich."
As she uttered the words clearly and distinctly, the portières were pushed hastily aside, and George Newbold's voice preceded himself in person, exclaiming:
"May we come in, my dear? We are bored to the verge of insanity."
And crossing the threshold he held back the curtains, and Vladimir Mellikoff stepped into their midst. As he did so a sudden quick sigh broke from Miss James, she got up hastily and passing down the room met his cool impenetrable glance with the slightest possible recognition, and upward gesture of her hand. He stepped forward to open the door for her, and when it closed upon her and he returned to the little group, a keen observer might have noticed a slight increase in the brilliancy of his eyes, a touch of triumph in the smile with which he bent over Miss Hildreth's hand, held out in greeting to him.
Patricia's face, however, looked cold and hard; and the line of dark fur lay about her white throat like the shadow of a coming calamity.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CANKER WORM OF DOUBT.
Mr. Tremain did not again see Miss Hildreth after she left him standing by the fountain in the little wood, until they met in the green-room an hour before the play.