dress with grotesquely painted face. They were all talking at the
same time, and at intervals Fletcher muttered hotly: "This time
she leaves the bill or I walk out of the theatre!"

Then a clear voice cried:

"Me voila!" and a dainty apparition in an ermine wrap tripped
into the centre of the group, tapped the manager lightly on the
shoulder and said:

"Allons! I am ready!"

Mr. Mackwayte's face creased its mask of paint into a thousand
wrinkles. For, on seeing him, the dancer's face lighted up, and,
running to him with hands outstretched, she cried:

"Tiens! Monsieur Arthur!" while he ejaculated:

"Why, it's little Marcelle!"

But now the stage manager interposed. He whisked Madame's wrap
off her with one hand and with the other, firmly propelled her on
to the stage. She let him have his way with a merry smile, dark
eyes and white teeth flashing, but as she went she said to Mr.
Mackwayte:

"My friend, wait for me! Et puis nous causerons! We will 'ave a
talk, nest-ce pas?"

"A very old friend of mine, my dear," Mr. Mackwayte said to
Barbara when, dressed in his street clothes, he rejoined her in
the wings where she stood watching Nur-el-Din dancing. "She was
an acrobat in the Seven Duponts, a turn that earned big money in
the old days. It must be... let's see... getting on for twenty
years since I last set eyes on her. She was a pretty kid in those
days! God bless my soul! Little Marcelle a big star! It's really
most amazing!"

Directly she was off the stage, Nur-el-Din came straight to Mr.
Mackwayte, pushing aside her maid who was waiting with her wrap.

"My friend," she cooed in her pretty broken English, "I am so
glad, so glad to see you. And this is your girl... ah! she 'as
your eyes, Monsieur Arthur, your nice English gray eyes! Such a
big girl... ah! but she make me feel old!"

She laughed, a pretty gurgling laugh, throwing back her head so
that the diamond collar she was wearing heaved and flashed.

"But you will come to my room, hein?" she went on. "Marie, my
wrap!" and she led the way to the lift.

Nur-el-Din's spacious dressing-room seemed to be full of people
and flowers. All her little court was assembled amid a perfect
bower of hot-house blooms and plants. Head and shoulders above
everybody else in the room towered the figure of an officer in
uniform, with him another palpable Englishman in evening dress.

Desmond Okewood thought he had never seen anything in his life
more charming tha