up to. Now, a man I met at supper last night told me he thought he had seen Carlotta in Bloomsbury yesterday. However, I didn’t believe that, because she is expecting me in Paris; we happen to be as thick as thieves just now, and if she had been in London, she would have looked me up.”

“Just so,” I replied, wondering whether I should endeavor to obtain from Marie Deschamps information which would be useful to Rosa.

By the time that the star of the Diana had said goodbye to certain male acquaintances, and had gone through a complicated dialogue with her maid on the subject of dress-trunks, the clock pointed almost to nine, and a porter rushed us — Marie and myself — into an empty compartment of a composite coach near to the engine. The compartment was