She clasped her hands in a charming gesture of helpless appeal and the ladies looked at one another in horrified silence. What unheard of thing would this impossible girl propose next! They would be thankful when they saw her once more safely embarked for the "land of the free," and out from under their chaperonage, they hoped, forever. They realized that she was quite beyond their restraining powers. Had she no sense of decency at all?
The door opened, callers were announced, and the day was saved.
Opal straightened up, put on what she called her "best dignity" and comported herself in so very well-bred and amiable a manner that her cousins quite forgave all her past delinquencies and smiled approval upon the charming courtesy she extended to their guests. She could be such a lady when she would! No one could resist her! And yet they felt themselves sitting upon the crater of a volcano liable to erupt at any moment. One never felt quite safe with Opal.
But, much to their surprise and relief, everything went beautifully, and the guests departed, delighted with Lady Alice's "charming American cousin, so sweet, so dainty, so witty, so brilliant, and altogether lovely—really quite a dear, you know!"
But for all that, Lady Alice Mordaunt and Lady Fletcher were far from feeling easy over their guest, and ardently wished that the girl's father would cut short his visit to France and return to take her back with him to America. And while these two worthy ladies worried and fretted, Opal Ledoux laughed and dreamed.
And in a big mansion over in Berkeley Square Monsieur Paul Zalenska wondered—and listened.
CHAPTER IV
It was a whole two weeks after the Boy's experience at the theatre, and though the echoes of that mysterious voice still rang through all his dreams at night, and most of his waking hours, he had not heard its lilt again.