"What? Who?"
"Mr. Ivor Yardley!" the manager muttered uneasily. "He's waiting to speak to you—says he'll address the men if you'll allow him. Think it's safe?"
Dick frowned. "Of course it's safe! Where is he? Wait! I'll speak to him first. I'll get my wife to sing again while I do it." He turned round to Juliet sitting at the table behind him and bent to speak to her. "Can you give them another song—to fill in time? I've got to speak to a man outside." His eyes travelled swiftly on the words to the open doorway where a tall man, wearing a motor-mask and a leather coat, stood waiting.
Juliet's look followed his. She stood up quickly. "Dick! Who is it?"
Something in her voice brought his eyes back to her in sudden close scrutiny. For that instant he forgot the crowd of men and the need of the moment, forgot the man who waited in the background whom he had desired so urgently to see, forgot the whole world in the wide-eyed terror of her look.
Instinctively he stretched an arm behind her, but in the same moment Saltash came swiftly forward to her other side, and it was Saltash who spoke with the quick, intimate reassurance of the trusted friend.
"It's all right, Juliette. I'm here to take care of you. Give them one more song, won't you? Afterwards, if you've had enough of it, I'll take you back."
She turned her face towards him and away from Dick whose arm fell from her unheeded; but her gaze did not leave the figure that stood waiting in the dim doorway, upright, grim as Fate, watching her with eyes she could not see.
"Don't be afraid!" urged Saltash in his rapid whisper. "Anyhow, don't show it! I'll see you through."
"Are you ready?" said Dick on her other side.