“Forget that pleasant-looking gentleman in the box, Jeffrey?” she said, with a smile.
His face darkened, and the hand that rested on the table clenched tightly.
“You saw him!—you saw him!” he said, with suppressed fury. “Remember him, Doris! He is a villain!—a scoundrel! He is your, and my, greatest enemy——”
“That smiling, fair-haired gentleman?” she said.
“One may smile, and smile, and then be a villain, Doris,” he said, quoting “Hamlet.”
“And you won’t tell me who he is and all about him, Jeffrey?”
“Not to-night,” he said, knitting his brows. “Go now, Doris. Some other time——”
She touched his forehead with her lips, and stole away from him quietly, and went upstairs.
She slept little that night. The roar of the crowded theatre seemed to force its way into the white little room, and with it mingled Jeffrey’s strange words hinting at some fraud, and the words of Lord Cecil Neville’s note.
The morning broke clear and bright, and she came down, looking rather pale and grave.