"Cupid!" he said suddenly, in a voice that was quite changed, "Rita dear, I'm going to show you something!"
She heard the change in his voice, recognised it instantly, must have known by instinct, if not by knowledge, what it meant. But there was no confusion, nor consciousness in her face. She only leant over the narrow table and blew a spiral of cigarette smoke from her parted lips.
"What, Gilbert?" she said, and he seemed to hear a caress in her voice that fired him.
"You shall hear," he said in a low and unsteady voice. He drew a calling card from the little curved case of thin gold he carried in his waistcoat pocket, and wrote a sentence or two upon the back in French.
A waiter took the card and hurried away.
"Oh, Gilbert dear, what is the surprise?"
"Music, sweetheart. I've sent up to the band to play something. Something special, Cupid, just for you and me alone on the first of our Arabian Nights!"
She waited for a minute, following his eyes to the gilded gallery of the musicians which bulged out into the end of the room.
There was a white card with a great black "7" upon it, hanging to the rail. And then a sallow man with a moustache of ink came to the balcony and removed the card, substituting another for it on which was printed in staring sable letters—"BY DESIRE."
It was all quite new to Rita. She was awed at Gilbert's almost magical control of everything! She understood what was imminent, though.