Selincourt gave a little laugh as the curtain rose.  “An old flame,” he whispered to Laura, not dreaming that Isabel would understand even if she heard.

“What’s an old flame?” asked Isabel, examining him with her brilliant eyes.

“Feuerzauber,” said Selincourt readily.  “It means fire spell.  It’s often played between the acts.”

“Lucian, Lucian!” said his sister laughing.

“I don’t know much about music,” said Isabel.  “Was it well played?”

“Ah!  I know a lot about music,” said Selincourt, looking at her very kindly.  “No, it was rottenly played.  But some fellers can’t tell a good tune from a bad one.”

Lawrence did not return till the middle of the third act, and offered no apology.  He looked fierce and jaded and his eyes were strained.  “Past eleven,” he said, hurrying Laura into her coat while the orchestra played through the National Anthem, for which Selincourt stood stiffly to attention.  “No time for supper, our train goes at 11:59, I hate first nights, the waits between the acts are so infernally long.”  Laura’s eyebrows, faintly arched, hinted at derision.  “Oh, it dragged,” said Lawrence impatiently.  “Let’s get out of this.”

It was a clear autumn night:  the air was mild, and stars were burning overhead almost as brightly as the lamps in Shaftesbury Avenue.  What a chase of lamps, high and low, like fireflies in a wood:  green as grass, red as blood, or yellow as a naked flame!  What a sombre city, and what a fleeting crowd!  Isabel had never seen midnight London before.  Coming out into the hurrying street roofed with stars, she was seized by an impression of a solitude lonelier than any desert, and dark, like the terror of an eerie sunset or a dry storm on the moor.

“These taxis are waiting for us,” Lawrence had come up behind her and his hand was on her arm.  “Will you bring your sister, Selincourt?—­ Miss Isabel, will you come with me?”

“Oh but—!” said Laura, startled.  She was responsible to Val for Isabel, and she was not sure that either Val or Isabel would welcome this arrangement.

“Thank you,” said Isabel, obediently getting into the second cab.

“Better come, dear,” said Selincourt with a shrug, and Laura yielded, for it would have been tiresome to make Isabel get out again, and after all what signified a twenty minutes’ run?  Yet after the Cleve incident she did not quite like it.  Nor did Selincourt; Hyde’s overbearing manner set his teeth on edge; but the gentle Lucian would sooner have faced a loaded rifle than a dispute.  He agreed with Laura, however, that her fair Arcadian was a trifle too innocent for her years.

Alone with Isabel, Lawrence took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick fair hair, so thick that it might have been grey, while the deep lines round his mouth began to soften as though fatigue and irritation were being wiped away.  “Thank heaven that’s over.”