ea. Your maid served it with a certain
coldness of manner. I asked the reason, and she accused me of folly in
being devoted to you. She even hinted that your words were not wholly to
be relied on. I at once led her from the room."

"Without a kiss?"

"I held her at arm's length," said Lionel proudly.

Beatrice said "H'm" in a meditative manner, and then, more briskly,
"Please ring the bell."

Lionel obeyed, and waited in some distress. Suppose Mizzi were to excuse
herself by relating the incident in which he had been a partner! Would
he be cast into darkness on the instant? What a Nemesis for how trivial
a misdemeanor! He heard the bell ring again, as the impatient Beatrice
pressed the electric button, and sweat broke out upon his forehead. A
crisis was imminent. Still a third time the relentless tinkle sounded,
and he was without plan, excuse, or counterplot. He woke from his
anguish to hear the lady speak.

"She must have gone out, I suppose ... but we must make
sure ... perhaps ... will you come?"

He followed her, grateful for the respite, and at a loss for the
meaning. They went into the hall, and thence to the kitchen. No one was
there. In silence they knocked on the bedroom door, but received no
answer. Beatrice opened the door and peered within. She switched on the
electric light and they advanced. In the center of the floor stood a
portmanteau, strapped and labeled. Lionel lifted the label and read the
inscription aloud. It was to a warehouse in Camden Town.

"She has gone!" said the lady in a whisper of tragedy. "_She has gone!_"

"And a good riddance, too!" returned Lionel with a vast cheerfulness.
"But she might at least have laid supper first."

"You do not understand," said Beatrice tensely. "This is no ordinary
desertion. It means, I fear, that she has joined my enemies."

Lionel's good breeding was not proof against the suddenness of this. He
sat down abruptly on a convenient chair and laughed.

"No, no!" he cried. "That will not do, madam. That is--forgive me--too
crude, unworthy of your talents. Reflect! Your servant runs off in a
petulant fit, and lo! you exclaim that she has been suborned by the
Ottoman Empire! That is sheer melodrama."

Beatrice gave a smile that was grave and reproachful.

"You forget," she said gently, "that I am an actress."

The sweetness of the reproof, the ironical self-criticism, convinced him
of her sincerity more than any rhetoric could have done. "I beg you