“Is this the Rue d’Hollande?” Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping quickly up and putting her head out of the window.

“Mais oui, Mademoiselle,” I heard the man answer.

“Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders.”

“I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could possibly happen,” said I.

“Wait a little, and maybe you’ll find out you’re mistaken.  If nothing does, and we aren’t amused, we can go on somewhere else.”

She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun almost noiselessly round the corner.  It slowed down before a gate set in a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me.

Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who looked like a lady’s maid.

I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who got down first.  It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper.  I had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of that exact shade:  Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie.

My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the house, I didn’t know.

“Oh, Lisa!” I reproached her.  “How could you?”

“It really was an inspiration.  I’m sure of that now,” she said quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide excitement.  “You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, yet you know who she is.  You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you.”

“I know by the hair,” I answered.  “I might have foreseen this would be the kind of thing you would think of—­it’s like you.”

“You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it,” said Lisa.  “It’s entirely for your sake; and it’s quite true, it was an inspiration to come here.  This afternoon in the train I read an interview in ‘Femina’ with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she’s produced to-night.  There was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue d’Hollande.”

“Now you have satisfied your curiosity.  You’ve seen her back, and her maid’s back, and the garden wall,” I said, more sharply than I often speak to Lisa.  “I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once.  I know why you want to wait here, but you shan’t—­I won’t.  I’m going away as quickly as I can.”

She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver.  Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and persuasiveness.