They all three looked at each other, perplexed.
"Ah! he's dead! I can see it in your faces. He'd got heart-disease. I'm sorry! oh, very sorry indeed! He was always very kind, poor Svengali!"
"Yes. He's dead," said Taffy.
"And Gecko—dear little Gecko—is he dead too? I saw him last night—he warmed my hands and feet: where were we?"
"No. Gecko's not dead. But he's had to be locked up for a little while. He struck Svengali, you know. You saw it all."
"I? No! I never saw it. But I dreamt something like it! Gecko with a knife, and people holding him, and Svengali bleeding on the ground. That was just before Svengali's illness. He'd cut himself in the neck, you know—with a rusty nail, he told me. I wonder how!... But it was wrong of Gecko to strike him. They were such friends. Why did he?"
"Well—it was because Svengali struck you with his conductor's wand when you were rehearsing. Struck you on the fingers and made you cry! don't you remember?"
"Struck me! rehearsing?—made me cry! what are you talking about, dear Taffy? Svengali never struck me! he was kindness itself! always! and what should I rehearse?"
"Well, the songs you were to sing at the theatre in the evening."
"Sing at the theatre! I never sang at any theatre—except last night, if that big place was a theatre! and they didn't seem to like it! I'll take precious good care never to sing in a theatre again! How they howled! and there was Svengali in the box opposite, laughing at me. Why was I taken there? and why did that funny little Frenchman in the white waistcoat ask me to sing? I know very well I can't sing well enough to sing in a place like that! What a fool I was! It all seems like a bad dream! What was it all about? Was it a dream, I wonder!"