'You know what I think, mother,' he answered.
'You did not want her to do it.'
'I've changed my mind,' said Lushington. 'It's the real thing. It would be a sin to keep it off the stage.'
Madame Bonanni nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing. A knock was heard at the door of the box. Lushington got up and opened, and the dark figure of the cadaverous maid appeared in the dim light. Before she had spoken, Madame Bonanni was close to her.
'They are in the chorus,' said the maid in a low voice, 'and there is some one behind the door, waiting. I think it will be now.'
That was all Lushington heard, but it was quite enough to awaken his curiosity. Who was in the chorus? Behind which door was some one waiting? What was to happen 'now'?
Madame Bonanni reflected a moment before she answered.
'They won't try it now,' she said, at last, very confidently.
The maid shrugged her thin shoulders, as if to say that she declined to take any responsibility in the matter, and did not otherwise care much.
'Do exactly as I told you,' Madame Bonanni said. 'If anything goes wrong, it will be my fault, not yours.'