"The rehearsals are all right," she admitted, looking up at him almost pathetically. "It's the night itself that seems so awful. I know every word, I know every note, and yet I can't feel sure. I can't sleep for thinking about it. Only last night I had a nightmare. I saw all those rows and rows of faces, and the lights, and my voice went, my tongue was dry and hard, not a word would come. And you were there—and the others!"
He laughed at her.
"Little girl," he said solemnly, "I shall have to speak to Sidney. One of those two young men must take you out for a day in the country to-morrow."
"They seem so busy," she complained. "They don't seem to have time to think of me. I suppose I had better let you go in. They'd be furious if they thought I was keeping you."
They passed into the villa, and with a farewell pat of the hand Hunterleys left her and opened a door on the left-hand side of the hall. The young man who had met him coming out of the Opera was standing with his hands in his pockets, upon the hearth-rug of an exceedingly untidy-looking apartment. There was a table covered with papers, another piled with newspapers. There were books upon the floor, pipes and tobacco laid about haphazard. A space had been swept clear upon the larger table for a typewriter, a telephone instrument stood against the wall. A man whose likeness to Felicia was at once apparent, swung round in his chair as Hunterleys entered. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat and his trousers seemed smothered with dust.
"Regular newspaper correspondent's den," Hunterleys remarked, as he looked around him. "I never saw such a mess in my life. I wonder Felicia allows it."
"We don't let her come in," her brother chuckled. "Is the door closed?"
"Fast," Hunterleys replied, moving away from it.
"Things are moving," the other went on. "I took the small car out to-day on the road to Cannes and I expect I was the first to see Douaille."
"I saw him myself," Hunterleys announced. "I was out on that road, walking."