The solution of her monetary obligations to Sir Owen still perplexed her.  She regretted not having laid the matter before Monsignor, and looked forward to doing so.  She could hear his clear, explicit voice telling her what she must do, and guidance was such a sweet thing.  He would say that to try to calculate hotel bills and railway fares was out of the question; but if she had said that the money Sir Owen had advanced her to pay Madame Savelli was to be considered as a debt, she must offer to return it.  She knew that Owen would not accept it.  It would be horrid of him if he did, but it would be still more horrid of her if she did not offer to return it.

She had not really begun to make money till the last few years, and as there had been no need for her to make money, she had sacrificed money to her pleasure and to Owen’s.  She had refused profitable engagements because Owen wanted her to go yachting, or because he wanted to go to Riversdale to hunt, or because she did not like the conductor.  So it happened that she had very little money—­about five thousand pounds, and her jewellery would fetch about half what was paid for it.

If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself with an adequate income.  There was the tiara which the subscribers to the opera in New York had presented her with—­that would fetch a good deal.  It didn’t become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it.  But from the point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously.  A few nights after, she had been introduced to him at a ball.  His eyes went at once to the diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once suspected he was the sender.  They had danced many times, and retired for long, eager talks into distant corners.  And the following evening she had found him waiting for her at the stage door.  He had begged her to meet him in a park outside the city.  He was attractive, young, and she was alone.  Owen was away.  She had thought that she liked him, and it was exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for them below the hill.  She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going to rain.  She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager, insinuating voice.  But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day.  It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened.  How strange!  She might have liked him.  How strange; she never would see him.  And she sat dreaming a long while.