“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend,” Lionel said, quite humbly.  “Only—­you see—­the other night you showed me that ingenious dodge of covering the ring you wear with a bit of white india-rubber—­and—­and I thought it might be an engagement ring—­worn on that finger—­”

“Then you’re quite wrong, Mr. Clever,” said the voice.  “That ring was given me by a very dear friend, a very, very dear friend—­I won’t tell you whether a he or a she—­and it fits that finger; but all the same I don’t want the public to think I am engaged.  So there—­for your wonderful guessing!”

“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” said he; “I didn’t mean to be inquisitive.”

But at this moment the intervening curtains were thrown open, and here was Grace Mainwaring, in full panoply of white satin and pearls and powdered hair.  She was followed by her maid.  She went to the long mirror in this larger room, and began to put the finishing touches to the set of her costume and also to her make-up.  Then she told Jane to go and get the inner room tidied; and when the maid had disappeared she turned to the young baritone.

“Mr. Moore,” said she, rather pointedly, “you are not very communicative.”

“In what way?”

“I understand you are going to take Miss Ross and Miss Girond down to Richmond on Sunday; I don’t see myself why you should conceal it.”

“I never thought of concealing it!” he exclaimed, with a little surprise.  “Why should a trifling arrangement like that be concealed—­or mentioned either?”

Miss Burgoyne regarded herself in the mirror again, and touched her white wig here and there and the black beauty-spots on her cheek and chin.

“I have been told,” she remarked, rather scornfully, “that gentlemen are fond of the society of chorus-girls—­I suppose they enjoy a certain freedom there that they don’t meet elsewhere.”

“Neither Miss Ross nor Miss Girond is a chorus-girl,” he said—­though he wasn’t going to lose his temper over nothing.

“They have both sung in the chorus,” she retorted, snappishly.

“That is neither here nor there,” he said.  “Why, what does it matter how we go down, when we shall all meet there on a common footing?  It was an obviously simple arrangement—­Sloane Street is on my way, whether I go by road or rail—­”

“Oh, pray don’t make any apology to me—­I am not interested in the question,” she observed, in a most lofty manner, as she still affected to be examining her dress in the mirror.

“I wasn’t making any apology to anybody,” he said, bluntly.

“Or explanation,” she continued, in the same tone.  “You seem to have a strange fancy for foreigners, Mr. Moore; and I suppose they are glad to be allowed to practice talking with any one who can speak decent English.”

“Nina—­I mean Miss Ross—­is an old friend of mine,” he said, just beginning to chafe a little.  “It is a very small piece of courtesy that I should offer to see her safely down to Richmond, when she is a stranger, with hardly any other acquaintance in London—­”