XIII
A MIDNIGHT TÊTE-À-TÊTE
When Dulcie had entered the studio that evening, her white face smeared with blood and a torn letter clutched in her hand, the gramophone was playing a lively two-step, and Barres and Thessalie Dunois were dancing there in the big, brilliantly lighted studio, all by themselves.
Thessalie caught sight of Dulcie over Barres’s shoulder, hastily slipped out of his arms, and hurried across the polished floor.
“What is the matter?” she asked breathlessly, a fearful intuition already enlightening her as her startled glance travelled from the blood on Dulcie’s face to the torn fragments of paper in her rigidly doubled fingers.
Barres, coming up at the same moment, slipped a firm arm around Dulcie’s shoulders.
“Are you badly hurt, dear? What has happened?” he asked very quietly.
She looked up at him, mute, her bruised mouth quivering, and held out the remains of the letter. And Thessalie Dunois caught her breath sharply as her eyes fell on the bits of paper covered with her own handwriting.
“There was a man hiding in the court,” said Dulcie. “He wore a white cloth over his face and he came up behind me and tried to snatch your letter out of my hand; but I held fast and he only tore it in two.”