"Still I think that I can play the overture," she said
with a smile, and she took down her violin. She played the overture
through from the beginning to the end. Durrance stood at the window with
his back towards her until she had ended. Then he walked to her side.
"I was rather a brute," he said quietly, "to ask you to play that
overture to-night."
"I wasn't anxious to play," she answered as she laid the violin aside.
"I know. But I was anxious to find out something, and I knew no other
way of finding it out."
Ethne turned up to him a startled face.
"What do you mean?" she asked in a voice of suspense.
"You are so seldom off your guard. Only indeed at rare times when you
play. Once before when you played that overture you were off your guard.
I thought that if I could get you to play it again to-night--the
overture which was once strummed out in a dingy cafe at Wadi
Halfa--to-night again I should find you off your guard."
His words took her breath away and the colour from her cheeks. She got
up slowly from her chair and stared at him wide-eyed. He could not know.
It was impossible. He did not know.
But Durrance went quietly on.
"Well? Did you take back your feather? The fourth one?"
These to Ethne were the incredible words.
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