'There will be a fuss, if I do not find a quick way back among those people,' she said, passing round him to the door. Then paused with her hand on the knob, considering something.
'Why did you do it, Mr. Rollo?'
'I will try to explain, as soon as I get an opportunity. One word,' he added, detaining her,—'Laugh it off as far as you can, down stairs, as part of the play.'
'Easy to do,' said the girl with some emphasis. 'Unfortunately I do not feel at all like laughing. If you had done me a little honour, sir, it would have been needless.'
She went first to the small dressing-room down stairs, catching up her serge and muffling herself in it once more, so that not a thread of her peasant's dress appeared; then went silently in among the crowd, a very sober witch indeed. It was a little while before she was molested. By and by, while another charade was engaging people's interest, Mme. Lasalle worked round to the muffled figure.
'My dear,' she whispered, 'who was that?'
'One of your dominoes, Madame. Acted with a good deal of spirit, didn't you think so?'
'Magnifique! But that was none of my dominoes. My dear, you will never know how lovely your representation was. But, that interruption was no part of our play, as we had planned it. How came it? Who was it? Somebody who made play to suit himself? How came it, Hazel?'
'Just what I have been trying to find out,' said the girl. 'I shall not rest till I do.' But she moved off then, and kept moving, and was soon too well taken possession of for many questions to reach her. All of her audience but two or three, took the interruption for part of the play, and were loud in their praises. Hearing and not hearing, muffled in thoughts yet more than in serge, as an actor or spectator the Witch of Endor saw the charades through, and played with her supper, and finally went out to her carriage and the dark world of night. For there was no moon this time, and stars are uncertain things.
As Stuart Nightingale came back from putting her into the carriage, he encountered his aunt.