laughed softly.

'If I were conspiring against you, you would not guess it, my friend,'
he observed in a gentle tone. 'And you will never get anything out of
me by threatening, you know.'

Schreiermeyer's face relaxed instantly into an expression of
disappointment, and he looked wearily at the stage again.

'No, it is of no use,' he answered in a melancholy tone. 'You are
phlegmatic.'

'Perfectly,' Logotheti assented. 'If I were you, I would put her on in
_Rigoletto_.'

'Does she know the part?' Schreiermeyer asked, as calmly as if nothing
had happened.

'Ask Madame De Rosa,' suggested the Greek. 'I see her on the stage.'

'I will. There is truth in what you say about _Faust_. The part is
trying.'

'You told me it was bosh,' Logotheti observed with a smile.

'I had forgotten that you are such a phlegmatic man, when I said that,'
answered Schreiermeyer with the frankness of a conjurer who admits that
his trick has been guessed.

They had been talking as if nothing were going on, but now the
conductor turned to them, and gave a signal for silence, which was
taken up by all the people on the stage.

'Sh--sh--sh--sh--' it came from all directions.

'Here comes Cordova,' observed Schreiermeyer in a low tone.

Margaret appeared, wearing an extremely becoming hat, and poked her
head round the white horse's tail, which represented the door of her
cottage as to position.

The tenor, who had nothing to do and was supposed to be off, at once
turned himself into a stage Faust, so far as expression went, but his
white waistcoat and pot hat hindered the illusion so much that Margaret
smiled.

She sang the 'King of Thule,' and every one listened in profound
silence. When she had finished, Schreiermeyer and Logotheti turned
their heads slowly, by a common instinct, looked at each other a moment
and nodded gravely. Then Logotheti rose rather suddenly.

'What's the matter?' asked the impresario.

But the Greek had disappeared in the gloom of the house and
Schreiermeyer merely shrugged his shoulders when he saw that his
question had not been heard. It would have been perfectly impossible
for him to understand that Logotheti, who was so 'phlegmatic,' could
not bear the disturbing sight of the white waistcoat and the hat while
Margaret was singing the lovely music and looking, Logotheti thought,
as she had never looked before.

He went behind, and sat down in a corner where he could hear without
seeing what was goin