She flushed at the direct question.  She had not expected it.  “It is a very long time since I last saw him,” she said, with a deliberate effort to banish all interest from her voice.

He was not looking at her.  He could not have been aware of the flush.  Yet he elected to push the matter further.

“A queer fish,” he said.  “A very queer fish.  He has lost his left arm, poor beggar.  Did you know?”

Yes, she knew; but she could hardly summon the strength to tell him so.  Her fan concealed her quivering lips, but the hand that held it shook uncontrollably.

But he, still casual, continued his desultory harangue.  “Always reminds one of a jack-in-the-box—­that fellow.  Has a knack of popping up when you least expect him.  You never know what he will do next.  You can only judge him by the things he doesn’t do.  For instance, there’s been a rumour floating about lately that he has just gone into a Tibetan monastery.  Heaven knows who started it and why.  But it is absolutely untrue.  It is the sort of thing that couldn’t be true of a man of his temperament.  Don’t you agree with me?  Or perhaps you didn’t know him very well, and don’t feel qualified to judge.”

At this point he pulled out his programme and studied it frowningly.  He was plainly not paying much attention to her reply.  He seemed to be contemplating something that worried him.

It made it all the easier for her to answer.  “No,” she said slowly.  “I didn’t know him very well.  But—­that rumour was told to me as absolute fact.  I—­of course—­I believed it.”

She knew that her face was burning as she ended.  She could feel the blood surging through every vein.

“If you want to know what I think,” said Bobby Fraser deliberately, “it is that that rumour was a malicious invention of some one’s.”

“Oh, do you?” she said.  “But—­but why?”

He turned and looked at her.  His usually merry face was stern.  “Because,” he said, “it served some one’s end to make some one else believe that Nick had dropped out for good.”

Her eyes fell under his direct look.  “I don’t understand,” she murmured desperately.

“Nor do I,” he rejoined, “for certain.  I can only surmise.  It doesn’t do to believe things too readily.  One gets let in that way.”  He rose and offered her his arm.  “Come outside for a little.  This place is too warm for comfort.”

She went with him willingly, thankful to turn her face to the night.  A dozen questions hovered on her lips, but she could not ask him one of them.  She could only walk beside him and profess to listen to the stream of anecdotes which he began to pour forth for her entertainment.

She did not actually hear one of them.  They came to her all jumbled and confused through such a torrent of gladness as surely she had never known before.  For the bird in her heart had lifted its head again, and was singing its rapture to the stars.