“Why, that’s easy,” Mr. Pritchard declared.  “Is Miss Tavernake really her name, or an assumed one?  I expect it’s the same over here as in my country—­a singer very often sings under another name than her own, you know,” he added, noting Tavernake’s gathering frown.

“The young lady in question is my sister, and I do not care to discuss her with strangers,” Tavernake announced.

Mr. Pritchard nodded pleasantly.

“Why, of course, that ends the matter,” he remarked.  “Sorry to have troubled you, anyway.”

He strolled off back to his seat and Tavernake returned thoughtfully to the dressing-room.  He found Beatrice alone and waiting for him.

“You’ve got rid of that fellow, then?” he inquired.

Beatrice assented.

“Yes; he didn’t stay very long,” she replied.

“Who was he?” Tavernake asked, curiously.

“From a musical comedy point of view,” she said, “he was the most important person in London.  He is the emperor of stage-land.  He can make the fortune of any girl in London who is reasonably good-looking and who can sing and dance ever so little.”

“What did he want with you?” Tavernake demanded, suspiciously.

“He asked me whether I would like to go upon the stage.  What do you think about it, Leonard?”

Tavernake, for some reason or other, was displeased.

“Would you earn much more money than by singing at these dinners?” he asked.

“Very, very much more,” she assured him.

“And you would like the life?”

She laughed softly.

“Why not?  It isn’t so bad.  I was on the stage in New York for some time under much worse conditions.”

He remained silent for a few minutes.  They had made their way into the street now and were waiting for an omnibus.

“What did you tell him?” he asked, abruptly.

She was looking down toward the Embankment, her eyes filled once more with the things which he could not understand.

“I have told him nothing yet,” she murmured.

“You would like to accept?”

She nodded.

“I am not sure,” she replied.  “If only — I dared!”

CHAPTER VIII

WOMAN’S WILES

At eleven o’clock the next morning, Tavernake presented himself at the Milan Court and inquired for Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  He was sent at once to her apartments in charge of a page.  She was lying upon a sofa piled up with cushions, wrapped in a wonderful blue garment which seemed somehow to deepen the color of her eyes.  By her side was a small table on which was some chocolate, a bowl of roses, and a roll of newspapers.  She held out her hand toward Tavernake, but did not rise.  There was something almost spiritual about her pallor, the delicate outline of her figure, so imperfectly concealed by the thin silk dressing-gown, the faint, tired smile with which she welcomed him.