Lennox questioned also, but with his eyes.
Margaret hesitated. Then she got it. Taking the girl's hand she patted
it and to Lennox said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if
what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me."
Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation
which only the tormented know.
Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a
girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking,
unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became
her.
Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her
mother and looked at the girl.
"What is she singing?"
Paliser covered her with his eyes. "Verdi's _Segreto per esser
felice_--the secret of happiness. Such a simple secret too."
"Yes?" Margaret absently returned. She was looking now at the booth.
Quite as vaguely she added: "In what does it consist?"
"In getting what we do not deserve."
There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which
already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her.
Annoyedly she turned.
Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-a-brac is very banal. Perhaps you
prefer Strauss. His dissonances are more harmonic than they sound."
Now though there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased
and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the
audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling.
She looked cheerful and evil.
"I do believe that's the Tamburini," Mrs. Austen remarked. "I heard her
at the Academy, ages ago." The usual touch followed. "How she has gone
off!"
The fat woman stood up, and, preceded by the girl, descended into the
audience.
Margaret looked again at the booth. Lennox was coming out. He said a
word to Miss Bleecker and glanced about the room.
Margaret motioned. He did not notice. The girl who had been singing was
bearing down on him, a hand outstretched and, in her face, an expression
which Margaret could not interpret. But she saw Lennox smile, take her
hand and say--what? Margaret could not tell, but it was something to
which the girl was volubly replying.
"Who's his little friend?" Mrs. Austen in her even voice inquired. "Mr.
Paliser," she added. "Would you mind telling--er--my daughter's young
man that we are waiting."
Margaret winced. She had turned from Paliser and she turned then from
her mother.
Paliser, whom the phrase "my daughter's young man" amused, sauntered
away. He strolled on to where Lennox stood with the girl. The fat woman
joined them.
Lennox must have introduced Paliser, for Margaret could see them all
talking at once. Then Lennox again looked about, saw Margaret and her
mother, and came over.
"Who's your friend?" Mrs. Austen asked.
Lennox' eyes caressed Margaret. Then he turned to her mother. "She is a
Miss Cara. Cassy Cara her name is. I know her father. He is a
violinist."
And my daughter is second fiddle, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "How
interesting!"
With his sombre air, Lennox summarised it. "She is studying for the
opera. The woman with her, Madame Tamburini, is her coach. You may have
heard of her."
"A fallen star," Mrs. Austen very pleasantly remarked. Quite as
pleasantly she added: "The proper companion for a soiled dove."
The charm of that was lost. Margaret, who had not previously seen this
girl but who had heard of her from Lennox, was speaking to him.
"It was her father, was it?" Then, dismissing it, she asked anxiously:
"But do tell me, Keith, what did the medium say?"
"That I would be up for murder."
Margaret's eyes widened. But, judging it ridiculous, she exclaimed: "Was
that all?"
"All!" Lennox grimly repeated. "What more would you have?" Abruptly he
laughed. "I don't wonder Mrs. Amsterdam wanted her money back."
On the stage, from jungles of underwear, legs were tossing. The
orchestra had become frankly canaille. Moreover the crowd of Goodness
knows who had increased. A person had the temerity to elbow Mrs. Austen
and the audacity to smile at her. It was the finishing touch.