"The Lady Allegra," I said, under my breath, as I walked home. "The Lady Allegra."
Up to this point I had kept my own counsel, but now I felt it my duty to make a confidant of Indiman. He listened to my story with grave attention.
"It promises well—decidedly so," admitted Indiman. "Confound it! If it were not for this unlucky accident of a sprained ankle—" and he glanced ruefully at his injured limb encased in its plaster-of-Paris form.
"I like the name," I went on, somewhat irrelevantly. "The Lady Allegra."
"There are possibilities in it," assented Indiman, grumpily. "Will you hand me my solitaire cards—and, for Heaven's sake! stop kicking the lacquer off the andirons."
"Oh, I beg your pardon."
"Of course you understand what I mean. It isn't the andirons, but the sight of your aggressively vigorous legs that moves me to childish wrath. To be tied down here like a trussed pigeon! Better leave me to my solitaire. I'll be more civilized after luncheon." Whereupon I smiled and went out.
Half-past eight o'clock; the Worth Monument; Red-Fez in a four-wheeler; the carefully drawn window-curtains; the production of the black silk bag with which to envelop my head—it all happened in accordance with the playbill. At first I tried to keep some idea of distance and direction, but I soon got confused and had to give it up. I could only conjecture that the course was a long one, for I heard a clock striking nine just as the cab stopped, and our pace had been a rapid one.
"Thisaway, sar," whispered my guide, and I yielded to the gentle pressure of his hand on my arm. The street door closed behind me, I felt myself guided up a pair of stairs, a sharp turn to the right, and we had arrived. But where? Then I realized that the black silk bag had been removed from my head and I was free to use my eyes. An ironical permission, truly, for I found myself in absolute darkness. Strain my vision as I might, not a ray of light met the sensitive surface of the retina. The blackness stood about me like a wall, immaterial, doubtless, but none the less impenetrable.
Deprived of sight, every mental faculty was instantly concentrated upon the single sense of hearing. My conductor had left me. There was the sound of a closing door and of padded foot-falls that trailed off into nothingness; then silence.