Lady Maud nodded, not surprised that Logotheti should have told the
Primadonna something about what he had been doing.
'Then you believe he is innocent,' she said confidently. 'Even though you don't like him, you'll help me, won't you?'
'I'll do anything you ask me. But I should think—'
'No,' Lady Maud interrupted. 'He must not be arrested at all. I know that he would rather face the detectives than run away, even for a few hours, till the truth is known. But I won't let him. It would be published all over the world to-morrow morning that he had been arrested for murder in my father's house, and it would never be forgotten against him, though he might be proved innocent ten times over. That's what I want to prevent. Will you help me?'
As she spoke the last words she raised the front lid of the piano, and Margaret turned on her seat towards the instrument to open the keyboard, nodding her assent.
'Just play a little, till I am out of the room, and then sing,' said
Lady Maud.
The great artist's fingers felt the keys as her friend turned away. Anything theatrical was natural to her now, and she began to play very softly, watching the moving figure in black velvet as she would have watched a fellow singer on the stage while waiting to go on.
Lady Maud did not speak to Van Torp first, but to Griggs, and then to Logotheti, and the two men slipped away together and disappeared. Then she came back to Van Torp, smiling pleasantly. He was still talking with Lord Creedmore, but the latter, at a word from his daughter, went off to the elderly peeress whom Logotheti had abruptly left alone before the portrait.
Margaret did not hear what Lady Maud said to the American, but it was evidently not yet a warning, for her smile did not falter, and he looked pleased as he came back with her, and they passed near the piano to go out through the open window upon the broad flagged terrace that separated the house from the flower-beds.
The Primadonna played a little louder now, so that every one heard the chords, even in the picture-gallery, and a good many men were rather bored at the prospect of music.