“Listen!” she interrupted sharply. “I have troubles enough. Don’t add to them, or I shall be sorry I met you again. I tell you my name is Thessa. Please remember it.”
“Very well,” he said, reddening under the rebuke.
She noted the painful colour in his face, then looked elsewhere, indifferently. Her features remained expressionless for a while. After a few moments she looked around at him again, and her smile began to glimmer:
“It’s only this,” she said; “the girl you met once in 53 your life—the dancing singing-girl they knew over there—is already an episode to be forgotten. End her career any way you wish, Garry,—natural death, suicide—or she can repent and take the veil, if you like—or perish at sea—only end her.... Please?” she added, with the sweet, trailing inflection characteristic of her.
He nodded. The girl smiled mischievously.
“Don’t nod your head so owlishly and pretend to understand. You don’t understand. Only two or three people do. And I hope they’ll believe me dead, even if you are not polite enough to agree with them.”
“How can you expect to maintain your incognito?” he insisted. “There will be plenty of people in your very first audience——”
“I had a sister, did I not?”
“Was she your sister?—the one who danced with you—the one called Thessa?”
“No. But the play-bills said she was. Now, I’ve told you something that nobody knows except two or three unpleasant devils—” She dropped her arms on the table and leaned a trifle forward: