nger I saw much 'life' as they call it, but not one lovely thing
unspoiled; it was all as ashes in the mouth. Ah! you may smile, but I
know what I am talking of. Happiness never comes when you are looking
for it, mademoiselle; beauty is in Nature and in real art, never in these
false silly make believes. There is a place just here where we Belgians
go; would you like to see how true my words are?

"Oh, yes!"

"Tres-bien! Let us go in?"

They passed into a revolving doorway with little glass compartments which
shot them out into a shining corridor. At the end of this the painter
looked at Noel and seemed to hesitate, then he turned off from the room
they were about to enter into a room on the right. It was large, full of
gilt and plush and marble tables, where couples were seated; young men in
khaki and older men in plain clothes, together or with young women. At
these last Noel looked, face after face, while they were passing down a
long way to an empty table. She saw that some were pretty, and some only
trying to be, that nearly all were powdered and had their eyes darkened
and their lips reddened, till she felt her own face to be dreadfully
ungarnished: Up in a gallery a small band was playing an attractive
jingling hollow little tune; and the buzz of talk and laughter was almost
deafening.

"What will you have, mademoiselle?" said the painter. "It is just nine
o'clock; we must order quickly."

"May I have one of those green things?"

"Deux cremes de menthe," said Lavendie to the waiter.

Noel was too absorbed to see the queer, bitter little smile hovering
about his face. She was busy looking at the faces of women whose eyes,
furtively cold and enquiring, were fixed on her; and at the faces of men
with eyes that were furtively warm and wondering.

"I wonder if Daddy was ever in a place like this?" she said, putting the
glass of green stuff to her lips. "Is it nice? It smells of
peppermint."

"A beautiful colour. Good luck, mademoiselle!" and he chinked his glass
with hers.

Noel sipped, held it away, and sipped again.

"It's nice; but awfully sticky. May I have a cigarette?"

"Des cigarettes," said Lavendie to the waiter, "Et deux cafes noirs. Now,
mademoiselle," he murmured when they were brought, "if we imagine that we
have drunk a bottle of wine each, we shall have exhausted all the
preliminaries of what is called Vice. Amusing, isn't it?" He shrugged
his shoulders.

His face stru