At last the adventures of the Dolmenico Doll were concluded, the naughty kisses regularised, the old men finally befooled, the glory extinguished, the music hushed.  The audience stood up and began to chatter, and the women curved their long arms backward to receive white cloaks from the men.  Arthur led the way out with Milly, and as the party slowly proceeded through the crush into the foyer, Leonora could hear the impetuous and excited child delivering to him her professional views on the acting and the singing.

‘Well, Burgess,’ Arthur said, in the portico, ’I guess we’ll see these ladies home, eh?’ And he called to a commissionaire:  ‘Say, two hansoms.’

In a minute Leonora and Arthur were driving together along the scintillating nocturnal thoroughfare; he had put Harry and Millicent into the other hansom like school children.  And in the sudden privacy of the vehicle Leonora thought:  ‘Now!’ She looked up at him furtively from beneath her eyelashes.  He caught the glance and shook his head sadly.

‘Why do you shake your head?’ she timidly began.

His kind shrewd eyes caressed her.  ‘You mustn’t look at me so,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I can’t stand it,’ he replied.  ’It’s too much for me.  You don’t know—­you don’t know.  You think I’m calm enough, but I tell you the top of my head has nearly come off to-day.’

‘But I——­’

‘Listen here,’ he ran on.  ’Let me finish up.  What I said a fortnight ago was quite right.  It was absolutely unanswerable.  But there was something about your letter that upset me.  I can’t tell you what it was—­only it made my heart beat.  And then yesterday I happened to go and worry out Rose at that awful hospital.  And then Milly to-night!  I know how you feel.  I’ve got it to the eighth of an inch.  And I’ve thought:  “Suppose I do get her to New York, and she isn’t happy?” Well, it’s right here:  I’ve settled to sell my business over there, and fix up in London.  What do I care for New York, anyway?  I don’t care for anything so long as we can be happy.  I’ve been a bachelor too long.  And if I can be alone with you in this London, lost in it, just you and me!  Oh, well!  I want a woman to think about—­one woman all mine.  I’m simply mad for it.  And we can only live once.  We shan’t be short of money.  Now don’t look at me any more like you did.  Say yes, and let’s begin right away and be happy.’

‘Do you really mean——?’ She was obliged thus, in weak unfinished phrases, to gain time in order to recover from the shock.

‘I’m going to cable to-morrow morning,’ he said, joyously.  ’Not that there’s so much hurry as all that, but I shall feel better after I’ve cabled.  I’m silly, and I want to be silly....  I wouldn’t live in New York for a million now.  And don’t you think we can keep an eye on Rose and Millicent, between us?’

‘Oh, Arthur!’

She breathed a long, deep sigh, shutting her eyes for an instant; and then the beautiful creature, with all her elegance and her appearance of impassive and fastidious calm, permitted herself to move infinitesimally, but perceptibly, closer to him in the hansom; and her spirit performed the supreme feminine act of acquiescence and surrender.  She thought passionately:  ‘He has yielded to me—­I will be his slave.’