Kettering nodded without paying much attention. He was profoundly uninterested in Claud Ambrose and the latter’s operatic setting of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt . So was Mirelle, for that matter, regarding it merely as a unique opportunity for her own presentation as Anitra.

“It is a marvellous dance,” she murmured. “I shall put all the passion of the desert into it. I shall dance hung over with jewels⁠—ah! and, by the way, mon ami , there is a pearl that I saw yesterday in Bond Street⁠—a black pearl.”

She paused, looking at him invitingly.

“My dear girl,” said Kettering, “it’s no use talking of black pearls to me. At the present minute, as far as I am concerned, the fat is in the fire.”

She was quick to respond to his tone. She sat up, her big black eyes widening.