ggie?" he demanded. "Every one has seen
Prince Shan here. You spoke of him yourself. He was in the box exactly
opposite."

She shook her head.

"That was one of his suite," she cried. "I know! I tell you I know!" she
went on, her voice rising a little. "Prince Shan is safe in his house in
Curzon Street."

"How can you possibly know this, Maggie?" Naida intervened eagerly.

"Because I left him there half an hour ago," was the tremulous reply.

CHAPTER XXII

There is in the Anglo-Saxon temperament an almost feverish desire to
break away from any condition of strain, a sort of shamefaced impulse to
discard emotionalism. The strange hush which had lent a queer sensation
of unreality to all that was passing in the great building was without
any warning brought to an end. Whispers swelled into speech, and speech
into almost a roar of voices. Then the music struck up, although at
first there were few who cared to dance. There were many who, like
Maggie and her companions, silently left their places and hurried
homewards.

In the limousine scarcely a word was spoken. Maggie leaned back in her
seat, her face dazed and expressionless. Opposite to her, Nigel sat with
set, grim face, looking with fixed stare out of the window at the
deserted streets. Of the three, Naida seemed more on the point of giving
way to emotion. They had passed Hyde Park Corner, however, before a word
was spoken. Then it was she who broke the silence.

"Where do we go to first?" she demanded.

"To the Milan Court," Nigel replied.

"You are taking me home first, then?"

"Yes!"

She was silent for a moment. Then she leaned forward and touched the
window.

"Pull that down, please," she directed. "I am stifling."

He obeyed, and the rush of cold, wet air had a curiously quietening
effect upon the nerves of all of them. Raindrops hung from the leaves of
the lime trees and still glittered upon the windowpane. On the way
towards the river, the masses of cloud were tinged with purple, and
faintly burning stars shone out of unexpectedly clear patches of sky.
The night of storm was over, but the wind, dying away before the dawn,
seemed to bring with it all the sweetness of the cleansed places, to be
redolent even of the budding trees and shrubs,--the lilac bushes,
drooping with their weight of moisture, and the pink and white chestnut
blossoms, dashed to pieces by the rain but yielding up their lives with
sweetness. The streets, in that sin