“I want to see you,” he begged, as soon as he was conscious of her presence at the other end.  “I want to see you at once.”

“Has anything happened?” she asked quickly.

“Yes!” he almost groaned.  “I can’t tell you—­”

“I will be with you in ten minutes,” she promised.

He set the receiver down.  Those ten minutes were surely the longest which had ever ticked their way into Eternity!  And then she came.  He heard the lift stop and his door open.  There was a moment’s breathless silence as their eyes met, then a little gathering together of the lines of her forehead, a half querulous, half sympathetic smile.  She shook her head at him.

“You’ve had one of those silly nervous attacks,” she declared.  “Tell me at once why?”

“Dane is back—­I saw him on the pavement this morning!” he exclaimed.  “He has been to England to find out!”

She made him sit down and seated herself by his side.

“Listen,” she said, “Dane came back on the Orinoco, the day before yesterday.  I saw his name in the paper.  If his voyage to England had been a success, which it could not have been, you would have heard from him before now.”

“I didn’t think of that,” he muttered.

“I have never asked you,” she went on, “to tell me exactly what happened behind there.  I don’t want to know.  Only I have a consciousness—­I had from the first, when you began to talk to me about it—­that your fears were exaggerated.  If you have been allowed to remain safe all this time, you will be safe always.  I feel it, and I am always right in these things.  Now use your own common sense.  Tell me truthfully, don’t you think it is very improbable that anything could be discovered?”

“That anything could be proved,” he admitted eagerly, “yes!”

“Then don’t be silly.  No one is likely to make accusations and attempt a case unless they had a definite end in view.  We are safe even from the Elletania people.  Mr. Raymond Greene has ceased to talk of your wonderful resemblance to Douglas Romilly.  Phoebe—­the only one who could really know—­will never open her lips.  Now take me for a little walk.  We will look in the shops in Fifth Avenue and lunch at the Ritz-Carlton.  Go and brush yourself and make yourself look respectable.  I’ll have a cigarette and read the paper....  No, I won’t, I’ll look over these loose sheets and see how you are getting on.”

He disappeared into his room for a few minutes.  When he returned she was entirely engrossed.  She looked up at him with something almost of reverence in her face.

“When did you write this?” she asked.

“Yesterday, most of it,” he answered.  “There is more of it—­I haven’t finished yet.  When you send me away this afternoon, I shall go on.  That is only the beginning.  I have a great idea dawning.”

“What you have written is wonderful,” she said simply.  “It makes me feel almost humble, makes me feel that the very best actress in the world remains only an interpretress.  Yes, I can say those words you have written, but they can never be mine.  I want to be something more than an intelligent parrot, Philip.  Why can’t you teach me to feel and think things like that?”