which went to play to Lady Artemis Hooper, when she lay
in bed after her famous escapade of falling through the window of her
taxi-cab. Aaron had that curious knack, which belongs to some people,
of getting into the swim without knowing he was doing it. Lady Artemis
thought his flute lovely, and had him again to play for her. Aaron
looked at her and she at him. She, as she reclined there in bed in a
sort of half-light, well made-up, smoking her cigarettes and talking in
a rather raucous voice, making her slightly rasping witty comments
to the other men in the room--of course there were other men, the
audience--was a shock to the flautist. This was the bride of the moment!
Curious how raucous her voice sounded out of the cigarette smoke. Yet
he liked her--the reckless note of the modern, social freebooter. In
himself was a touch of the same quality.

"Do you love playing?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said, with that shadow of irony which seemed like a smile on
his face.

"Live for it, so to speak," she said.

"I make my living by it," he said.

"But that's not really how you take it?" she said. He eyed her. She
watched him over her cigarette. It was a personal moment.

"I don't think about it," he said.

"I'm sure you don't. You wouldn't be so good if you did. You're awfully
lucky, you know, to be able to pour yourself down your flute."

"You think I go down easy?" he laughed.

"Ah!" she replied, flicking her cigarette broadcast. "That's the point.
What should you say, Jimmy?" she turned to one of the men. He screwed
his eyeglass nervously and stiffened himself to look at her.

"I--I shouldn't like to say, off-hand," came the small-voiced,
self-conscious answer. And Jimmy bridled himself and glanced at Aaron.

"Do you find it a tight squeeze, then?" she said, turning to Aaron once
more.

"No, I can't say that," he answered. "What of me goes down goes down
easy enough. It's what doesn't go down."

"And how much is that?" she asked, eying him.

"A good bit, maybe," he said.

"Slops over, so to speak," she retorted sarcastically. "And which do you
enjoy more, trickling down your flute or slopping over on to the lap of
Mother Earth--of Miss, more probably!"

"Depends," he said.

Having got him a few steps too far upon the personal ground, she left
him to get off by himself.

So he found London got on his nerves. He felt it rubbed him the wrong
way. He was flattered, of course, by his own success--and fe