I must confess, however, that I feared the possible passing by of the two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French window this morning.  She is really indecently beautiful.  She was wearing a deep red silk peignoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which clung to every salient curve of her figure.  I wondered where, in the name of morality, she had procured the garment.  I learned later that it was the joy and pride of Antoinette’s existence; for once, in the days long ago, when she was femme de chambre to a luminary of the cafes concerts, it had met around her waist.  She had treasured the cast-off finery of this burned-out star—­she beamed in the seventies—­for all these years, and now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta.  She was also washed specklessly clean.  An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could give disengaged itself from her as she moved.  Her gold-bronze hair was superbly ordered.  I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay garment left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. “Et sa peau!  On dirait du satin.” Confound Antoinette!  She had the audacity, too, to come down with bare feet.  It was a revelation of pink, undreamed-of loveliness in tus.

I repeat she is indecently beautiful.  A chit of a girl of eighteen (for that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the beauty that should be the appanage of the woman of seven and twenty.  She should be modestly well-favoured, as becomes her childish stage of development.  She looked incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her with some resentment.  I dislike the exotic.  I prefer geraniums to orchids.  I have a row of pots of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves.  Carlotta is a flaring orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet.

I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could.  I had news of Harry, I said, gravely.  She merely looked interested and asked me when he was coming.

“I’m afraid he will never come,” said I.

“If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?”

Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety.  For the life of me I could not avoid the ironical.

“If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath my humble roof.”

The irony was lost on her.  She uttered a joyous little cry and held out both her hands to me.  Her eyes danced.

“Oh, I am glad he is not coming.  I don’t like him any more.  I love to stay here with you.”

I took both the hands in mine.  Mortal man could not have done otherwise.

“Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?”

She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered up her brows, like a wistful terrier.

“Is he dead?”