To break a silence and because it was the first thing that came into his head, he said, "You're left-handed."

"Yes," she said indifferently, as the subject deserved, and went on to ask him about his investigations. He told her as much as would appear in the morrow's press and described the knife, as being the most interesting feature of the case.

"The handle is a little silver saint with blue-and-red enamel decoration."

Something leaped suddenly in Ray Marcable's calm eyes.

"What?" she said involuntarily.

He was about to say, "You've seen one like it?" but changed his mind. He knew on the instant that she would say no, and that he would have given away the fact that he was aware that there was anything to be aware of. He repeated the description and she said:

"A saint! How quaint! And how inappropriate! — And yet, in a big undertaking like a crime, I suppose you'd want some one's blessing on it."

Cool and sweet she put out her left hand for his cup, and as she replenished it he watched her steady wrist and impassive manner and wondered if this too could be unreasonableness on his part.

"Certainly not," said his other self. "You may be suffering from attacks of flair in queer places, but you haven't got to the stage of imagining things yet."

They discussed America, which Grant knew well and to which she was about to make her first visit, and when he took his leave he was honestly grateful to her for the tea. He had forgotten all about tea. Now it wouldn't matter how late he had dinner. But as he went out he sought a light for his cigarette from the doorkeeper, and in the course of another ebullition of chatter and good will learned that Miss Marcable had been in her dressing-room from six o'clock the previous evening until the call-boy went for her before her first cue. Lord Lacing was there, he said, with an eloquent lift of his eyebrow.