CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH HELEN DE VALLORBES LEARNS HER RIVAL'S NAME "I hear Morabita sings, in _Ernani_, at the San Carlo on Friday night. Do you care to go, Helen?" The question, though asked casually, had, to the listener, the effect of falling with a splash, as of a stone into a well, awakening unexpected echoes, disturbing, rather harshly, the constrained silence which had reigned during the earlier part of dinner. All the long, hot afternoon, Madame de Vallorbes had been alone--Richard invisible, shut persistently away in tho…