There was loud applause, which the singer interrupted by commencing to
sing in a bass voice that broke into falsetto with such frequency that
it was difficult to tell which voice was the natural one. He started
off the verse very stoutly, but was growing rather maudlin, when,
reaching the chorus, he seemed to take on a new lease of vitality and
bellowed quite lustily:

'Moon, Moon, boo-oo-oo-ooful Moon,
Shining reshplendantly, radiant an' tenderly;
Moon, Moon, boo-oo--(hic)--booful Moon--
Tell her I shy for her, tell her I die for her,
Booful, BOO-OO-ooful Moon.

'Now then, fellow Athenians, chorush, chorush!' With an indescribable
medley of discordant howling the party broke into a series of 'Moon,
Moon, boo-oo-ooful Moon,' which came to an abrupt ending as the singer
fell back, apparently unconscious, in the arms of his friends. There
was a murmuring of voices, and a waiter was sent for some water to
revive the young man.

Considerably disgusted at the ending to the incident, Selwyn, who had
turned to look towards the _cabinet particulier_, once more sought his
companion's eyes.

Her face was white; there was not a vestige of colour in the cheeks.

'Miss Durwent,' he gasped, 'you are not well.'

'I am quite well,' she answered quickly, but her voice was weak and
quivering. 'I--I thought I recognised the singer's voice. That was
all.'

The curtain of the _cabinet particulier_ was drawn aside, and two
youths in evening-dress emerged, supporting between them the
dishevelled singer, who was miserably drunk, and whose hat almost
completely obscured his right eye. They were followed by three girls
with untidy hair, whose flushed, rouged faces had been made grotesque
by clumsy dabs of powder.

The singer's hat fell off, and Monsieur Beauchamp, who was hovering
about with the bill, had just stooped to recover it, when Selwyn heard,
a suppressed cry of pain from Elise Durwent. Thrusting her chair away
from her, she made for the emerging party, and halted them at the top
of the stairway.

'Dick!' she said breathlessly. 'Dick!'

The drunken youth raised his heavy eyelids and looked with bewildered
eyes at his sister. One of the girls tried to laugh, but there was
something in the insane lightness of his eyes and the agony of hers
that stifled the ribaldry in its birth. His face was as pale as hers,
a pallor that was accentuated by dark hair, matted impotently over his
forehead. But there w