Lady Ver laughed harshly, and I sat there still as death. And all the time the music and the movement on the stage went on. I am glad she is murdered in the end, glad——! Only I would like to have seen the blood gush out. I am fierce—fierce—sometimes.
300, Park Street,
Friday morning, Nov. 25th.
I know just the meaning of dust and ashes—for that is what I felt I had had for breakfast this morning, the day after “Carmen.”
Lady Ver had given orders she was not to be disturbed, so I did not go near her, and crept down to the dining-room, quite forgetting the master of the house had arrived. There he was—a strange, tall, lean man with fair hair, and sad, cross, brown eyes, and a nose inclined to pink at the tip—a look of indigestion about him, I feel sure. He was sitting in front of a “Daily Telegraph” propped up on the tea-pot, and some cold, untasted sole on his plate.
I came forward. He looked very surprised.
“I—I’m Evangeline Travers,” I announced.
He said “How d’you do” awkwardly; one could see without a notion what that meant.
“I’m staying here,” I continued. “Did you not know?”
“Then won’t you have some breakfast—beastly cold, I fear,” politeness forced him to utter. “No—Ianthe never writes to me—I had not heard any news for a fortnight, and I have not seen her yet.”