in the Introduction, when they were
expected to.'

'Perhaps,' suggested Madame Bonanni, 'the four supernumeraries are
dummies, put on to fill up.'

Just then the chorus was explaining at great length, as choruses in
operas often do, that it was absolutely necessary not to make the least
noise, while Rigoletto stood at the foot of the ladder, pretending
neither to hear them nor to know, in the supposed total darkness, that
his eyes were bandaged.

'Have you seen Logotheti?' asked Lushington.

'Not yet, but I shall certainly see him before it's over. I'm sure that
he is somewhere in the house.'

'He came over from Paris in his motor car,' Lushington said.

'I know he did.'

There was no reason why she should not know that Logotheti had come in
his car, but Lushington thought she seemed annoyed that the words
should have slipped out. Her eyes were still fixed intently on the
stage.

She rose to her feet suddenly, as if she had seen something that
startled her.

'Wait for me!' she said almost sharply, as she passed her son.

She was gone in an instant, and Lushington leaned back in his seat,
indifferent to what was going on, since Margaret had disappeared from
the stage. As for his mother's unexpected departure, he never was
surprised at anything she did, and whatever she did, she generally did
without warning, with a rush, as if some one's life depended on it. He
fancied that her practised eye had noticed something that did not
please her in the stage management, and that she had hurried away to
give her opinion.

But she had only gone behind to meet Margaret as she was carried off
the stage with a handkerchief tied over her mouth. She knew very nearly
at what point to wait, and the four big men in costume who came off
almost at a run, carrying Margaret between them, nearly ran into Madame
Bonanni, whom they certainly did not expect to find there.

When she was in the way, in a narrow place, it was quite hopeless to
try and pass her. The four men, still carrying Margaret, stopped, but
looked bewildered, as if they did not know what to do, and did not set
her down.

Madame Bonanni sprang at them and almost took her bodily from their
arms, tearing the handkerchief from her mouth just in time to let her
utter the cry for help which is heard from behind the scenes. It was
answered instantly by the courtiers shout of triumph, in which the four
men who had carried off Gilda did not join. Margaret gave one more