She nodded.
“Yes. But I believe that Mr. Earles thinks I am a little mad, and between ourselves I am not sure about it myself. It is easy enough to sing these little chansons in an original way—it requires a very different sort of ability to succeed on the stage.”
“You have it,” he declared confidently.
She laughed altogether in her old manner.
“I wonder how it is,” she exclaimed, “that my friends have so much more confidence in me than I have in myself.”
“They know you better,” he declared.
“I am afraid,” she answered, “that one’s friends can judge only of the externals, and the things which matter, the things inside are realized only by oneself—stop.”
She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they both stood still. They had turned into the street, on the opposite side of which were the flats where Anna lived. Glancing idly up at her own window as they had swung round the corner she had seen a strange thing. The curtains which she had left drawn were open, and the electric lights were turned on. Then, even as they stood there, the room was plunged into darkness.
“There is someone in my rooms,” Anna said.
“Is it your maid?” he asked.