or inspection."

"The play is a big success, isn't it?"

"I give it a year's run," returned the critic authoritatively. "Laurence
has written it to fit Raleigh like a glove. She's all they said of her
in London. And when she left here a year ago, she was just a fairly good
_ingenue_. However, she's got brains, which is the next best thing in
the theatrical game to marriage with the manager--or near-marriage."

Banneker, considering Gurney's crow-footed and tired leer, decided that
he did not like the critic much.

Back-of-curtain after a successful opening provides a hectic and
scrambled scene to the unaccustomed eye. Hastily presented to a few
people, Banneker drifted to one side and, seating himself on a wire
chair, contentedly assumed the role of onlooker. The air was full of
laughter and greetings and kisses; light-hearted, offhand, gratulatory
kisses which appeared to be the natural currency of felicitation. Betty
Raleigh, lovely, flushed, and athrill with nervous exaltation, flung him
a smile as she passed, one hand hooked in the arm of her leading man.

"You're coming to supper with us later," she called.

"Am I?" said Banneker.

"Of course. I've got something to ask you." She spoke as one expectant
of unquestioning obedience: this was her night of glory and power.

Whether he had been previously bidden in through Gurney, or whether this
chance word constituted his invitation, he did not know. Seeking
enlightenment upon the point, he discovered that the critic had
disappeared, to furnish his half-column for the morning issue. La
Tarantina, hearing his inquiry, gave him the news in her broken English.
The dancer, lithe, powerful, with the hideous feet and knotty legs
typical of her profession, turned her somber, questioning eyes on the
stranger:

"You air Monsieur Ban-kerr, who shoot, n'est-ce-pas?" she inquired.

"My name is Banneker," he replied.

"Weel you be ver' good an' shoot sahmbody for me?"

"With pleasure," he said, laughing; "if you'll plead for me with the
jury."

"Zen here he iss." She stretched a long and, as it seemed, blatantly
naked arm into a group near by and drew forth the roundish man whom
Cressey had pointed out at Marrineal's dinner party. "He would be
unfaithful to me, ziss one."

"I? Never!" denied the accused. He set a kiss in the hollow of the
dancer's wrist. "How d'ye do, Mr. Banneker," he added, holding out his
hand. "My name is Eyre."

"But yess!" cried the dancer.