of an imaginary Bond
Street. The house received the new number with genial enthusiasm, and
mingled its applause with demands for an earlier favourite. The
orchestra struck up the familiar air, and in a few moments the smart
errand-boy, transformed now into a smart jockey, was singing "They quaff
the gay bubbly in Eccleston Square" to an audience that hummed and nodded
its unstinted approval.

The next number but one was the Gorla Mustelford debut, and the house
settled itself down to yawn and fidget and chatter for ten or twelve
minutes while a troupe of talented Japanese jugglers performed some
artistic and quite uninteresting marvels with fans and butterflies and
lacquer boxes. The interval of waiting was not destined, however, to be
without its interest; in its way it provided the one really important and
dramatic moment of the evening. One or two uniforms and evening
toilettes had already made their appearance in the Imperial box; now
there was observable in that quarter a slight commotion, an unobtrusive
reshuffling and reseating, and then every eye in the suddenly quiet semi-
darkened house focussed itself on one figure. There was no public
demonstration from the newly-loyal, it had been particularly wished that
there should be none, but a ripple of whisper went through the vast
audience from end to end. Majesty had arrived. The Japanese
marvel-workers went through their display with even less attention than
before. Lady Shalem, sitting well in the front of her box, lowered her
observant eyes to her programme and her massive bangles. The evidence of
her triumph did not need staring at.

CHAPTER IX: AN EVENING "TO BE REMEMBERED"

To the uninitiated or unappreciative the dancing of Gorla Mustelford did
not seem widely different from much that had been exhibited aforetime by
exponents of the posturing school. She was not naturally graceful of
movement, she had not undergone years of arduous tutelage, she had not
the instinct for sheer joyous energy of action that is stored in some
natures; out of these unpromising negative qualities she had produced a
style of dancing that might best be labelled a conscientious departure
from accepted methods. The highly imaginative titles that she had
bestowed on her dances, the "Life of a fern," the "Soul-dream of a
topaz," and so forth, at least gave her audience and her critics
something to talk about. In themselves they meant absolutely nothing,
but they i