"Oh, don't ask Aunt Patricia!" cried the girl. "She thinks him quite the most fascinating man in London. Don't deny it, auntie!"
"I shan't," said the lady, calmly, "for it's true! Count Poltavo"—she paused, to inspect through her lorgnette some new-comers in the opposite box, where she got just a glimpse of a grey dress in the misty depths of the box, the whiteness of a gloved hand lying upon the box's edge—"Count Poltavo is the only interesting man in London. He is a genius." She shut her lorgnette with a snap. "It delights me to talk with him. He smiles and murmurs gay witticisms and quotes Talleyrand and Lucullus, and all the while, in the back of his head, quite out of reach, his real opinions of you are being tabulated and ranged neatly in a row like bottles on a shelf."
Doris nodded thoughtfully.
"I'd like to take down some of those bottles," she said. "Some day perhaps I shall."
"They're probably labelled poison," remarked Frank viciously. He looked at the girl with a growing sense of injury. Of late she had seemed absolutely changed towards him; and from being his good friend, with established intimacies, she had turned before his very eyes into an alien, almost an enemy, more beautiful than ever, to be true, but perverse, mocking, impish. She flouted him for his youth, his bluntness, his guileless transparency. But hardest of all to bear was the delicate derision with which she treated his awkward attempts to express his passion for her, to speak of the fever which had taken possession of him, almost against his will. And now, he reflected bitterly, with this velvet fop of a count looming up as a possible rival, with his savoir faire, and his absurd penchant for literature and art, what chance had he, a plain Briton, against such odds?—unless, as he profoundly believed, the chap was a crook. He determined to sound her guardian.
"Mr. Farrington," he asked aloud, "what do you think—hallo!" He sprang up suddenly and thrust out a supporting arm.
Farrington had risen, and stood swaying slightly upon his feet. He was frightfully pale, and his countenance was contracted as if in pain. He lifted a wavering hand to his head.
With a supreme effort he steadied himself.
"Doris," he asked quickly, "I meant to ask you—where did you leave Lady Constance?"