They got a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon for their drive down to Hampton Court; nor was it fated to be without incident either.  They had passed along Oxford Street and were just turning out of the crowded thoroughfare to enter Hyde Park—­and Lionel, as a man will, was watching how his coachman would take the horses through the Marble Arch—­when Nina said, in a low voice,

“Leo!”

“Well?” said he, turning to her.

“Did you not see?”

“See what?”

“The carriage that went past.”  Nina said, looking a little concerned.  “Miss Burgoyne was in it—­she bowed to you—­”

“Did she?  I didn’t see her—­I’ll have to apologize to her to-morrow,” said he, carelessly.  “Perhaps the compliment was meant for you, Nina.”

“For me?  Ah, no.  Miss Burgoyne speaks no more to me.”

“She doesn’t speak to you?  Why?” he asked, in some amazement.

The young Italian lady made a little gesture of indifference.

“How do I know?  But I am not sorry.  I do not like her—­no! she is not—­she is not—­straightforward, is it right?—­she is cunning—­and she has a dreadful temper—­oh!  I have heard;—­I have heard such stories!  Again, she is not an artist—­I said that to you from the beginning, Leo—­no, not an artist:  why does she talk to you from behind her fan, when she should regard the others on the stage?  Why does she talk always and always to you, when she has nothing to say?”

“Oh, but she finds plenty to say!” he observed.

“Yes,” said Nina, contemptuously, “she has always plenty to say to you on the stage, if she has not a word the moment the scene is over.  Why?  You don’t understand!  You don’t reflect!  I will tell you, Leo, if you are so simple.  You think she does not know that the public can see she talks to you?  She knows it well; and that is why she talks.  It is to boast of her friendship with you, her alliance with you.  She says to the ladies in the stalls, ’See here, I can talk to him when I please—­you are away—­you are outside.’  It is her vanity.  She says to them, ’You can buy his portrait out of the shop-window perhaps—­you can ask him to your house perhaps—­and he goes for an hour, among strangers—­but see here—­every night I am talking to him’—­”

“Yes, and see here, Nina,” he said, with a laugh, “how about my vanity?—­don’t you think of that?  Who could have imagined I was so important a person!  But the truth is, Nina, they’ve lengthened out that comic scene inordinately with all that gagging, and Miss Burgoyne has nothing to do in it; if she hides her talking behind her fan—­”

“Hides?” said Nina, with just a trace of scorn.  “No; she shows!  It is display!  It is vanity!  And you think a true artist would so forget her part—­would wish to show the people that she talks privately—­”

“Miss Nina is quite right, you know, Mr. Moore,” said the little widow in black, and she was entitled to speak with authority.  “I didn’t think it looked well myself.  A ballet-girl would catch it if she went on the same way.”