Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven.  I insisted on dressing at once, and took as long as I could in the process of making up; still, when I was ready there was more than half an hour to spare before the first act.  There were letters for me—­the kind that always come to the theatre—­but I couldn’t read them, after I had occupied myself with tearing open the envelopes.  I knew what they would be:  vows of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; petitions for advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; requests from artists who wanted to paint my picture.  There were always such things every night, especially after the opening of a new play.

I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly at crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door.  Marianne opened it, to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper.

“Mademoiselle,” she whispered, coming to me, “Monsieur le Comte Godensky wishes to see you.  Shall I say you are not receiving?”

I thought for a moment.  Better see him, perhaps.  I might learn something.  If not—­if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away.

I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there.  He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one is sure.

“Well?” I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone.  He held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when he had come too close.

“Well—­I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought you would be glad to see—­even me,” he answered, smiling still.

“What news?  But bad, of course—­or you wouldn’t bring it.”

“You are very cruel.  Of course, you’ve seen the evening papers?  You know that your English friend is in prison?”

“The same English friend whom you would have liked to see arrested early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge,” I flung at him.  “You look surprised.  But you are not surprised, Count Godensky—­except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at the Elysee Palace Hotel.  A disappointment, that affair, wasn’t it?  But you haven’t told me your news.”

“It is this:  That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack to-day.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has been in the hands of the Juge d’Instruction.  It is much the same, isn’t it, if one has secrets to keep?  Would you like to know, if some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, and what answers he made?”

Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky came!  I had been thinking of the Juge d’Instruction, and his terrible cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without trembling.  I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them.  Could it be that I was to hear, now?  But I reminded myself that this was impossible.  No one could know except the Juge d’Instruction and Ivor Dundas himself.  “Only two men were present at that scene, and they will never tell what went on,” I said aloud.