"Sylvia," he ventured very boldly, and there checked, so terrified as to be a shame to his brave scarlet, gold-laced uniform.
"Yes ?" she said.

She was leaning upon the balcony again, and in such a way now that he could no longer see her profile.

But her fingers were busy at the pearls once more, and this he saw, and seeing, recovered himself.
"You have something to say to me ?" he questioned in his smooth, level voice.
Had he not looked away as he spoke he might have observed that her fingers tightened their grip of the pearls almost convulsively, as if to break the rope.

It was a gesture slight and trivial, yet arguing perhaps vexation.

But Tremayne did not see it, and had he seen it, it is odds it would have conveyed no message to him.
There fell a long pause, which he did not venture to break.