ssed--devoured Lady Holme, and her large, curving features were
almost riotously interrogative.

"Yes," Lady Holme said. "Quite."

"She's startled everybody."

"Startled!--why?"

"Oh, well--she has! There's money in it, don't you think?"

"Henry," who had accompanied his wife, and who was standing sideways
at the back of the box looking like a thief in the night, came a step
forward at the mention of money.

"I'm afraid I'm no judge of that. Your husband would know better."

"Plenty of money," said "Henry," in a low voice that seemed to issue
from the bridge of his nose; "it ought to bring a good six thousand
into the house for the four weeks. That's--for Miss Schley--for the
Syndicate--ten per cent. on the gross, and twenty-five per cent.--"

He found himself in mental arithmetic.

"The--swan with the golden eggs!" said Lady Holme, lightly, turning once
more to Leo Ulford. "You mustn't kill Miss Schley."

Mrs. Wolfstein looked at Mr. Laycock and murmured to him:

"Pimpernel does any killing that's going about--for herself. What d'you
say, Franky?"

They went out of the box together, followed by "Henry," who was still
buzzing calculations, like a Jewish bee.

Lord Holme resolutely tore himself from the ear-trumpet, and was
preparing to follow, with the bellowed excuse that he was "sufferin'
from toothache" and had been ordered to "do as much smokin' as
possible," when the curtain rose on the second act.

Miss Schley was engaged to a supper-party that evening and did not wish
to be late. Lord Holme sat down again looking scarcely pleasant.

"Do as much--the what?" cried Mrs. Ulford, holding the trumpet at right
angles to her pink face.

Leo Ulford leant backwards and hissed "Hush!" at her. She looked at him
and then at Lady Holme, and a sudden expression of old age came into her
bird-like face and seemed to overspread her whole body. She dropped the
trumpet and touched the diamonds that glittered in the front of her low
gown with trembling hands.

Mr. Laycock slipped into the box when the curtain had been up two or
three minutes, but Sir Donald did not return.

"I b'lieve he's bolted," Leo whispered to Lady Holme. "Just like him."

"Why?"

"Oh!--I'm here, for one thing."

He looked at her victoriously.

"You'll have a letter from him to-morrow. Poor old chap!"

He spoke contemptuously.

For the first time Lord Holme seemed consciously and unfavourably
observant of his wife and Leo. His unde