stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. "But--I
know you're all tired, and--."

"And perhaps you have some nice engagement," piped Lisa.

"It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in
naughty Paris," said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very
handsome when she laughs, and knows it). "Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?"

"It depends upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then,
as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness,
the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young
ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged.
A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't,
and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late.
Good-bye,--good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them
again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a
horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I
turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to
do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or
something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been.

Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me
faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he
would know it.

I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under
porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction,
but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought
not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that
I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street
leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself.

"_Depechez vous_" I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer
than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The
man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street
at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly
ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came
to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour
after midnight.

MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART

CHAPTER VIII

MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF

How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know.

When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning
of the first act, my brain was a blank. I coul