t Hall, under the superintendence of the greatest modern English
painters, in aid of a fund for soldiers disabled by deafness. The
performers were all ladies of the upper world, ladies bearing names
for the most part as familiar as the names of streets--and not a
stage-star among them. Amateurism was to be absolutely untainted by
professionalism in the prodigious affair; therefore the prices of
tickets ruled high, and queens had conferred their patronage.

Lady Queenie removed several bracelets and a necklace, and, seizing a
plate, deposited it on the carpet.

"That piece of bread-and-butter," she said, "is the head of my beloved
John."

The clever footman started the gramophone, and Lady Queenie began
to dance. The lance-corporal walked round her, surveying her at all
angles, watching her like a tiger, imitating movements, suggesting
movements, sketching emotions with his arm, raising himself at
intervals on the toes of his thick boots. After a few moments
Concepcion glanced at G.J., conveying to him a passionate, adoring
admiration of Queen's talent.

G.J., startled by her brightened eyes so suddenly full of temperament,
nodded to please her. But the fact was that he saw naught to admire in
the beautiful and brazen amateur's performance. He wondered that she
could not have discovered something more original than to follow the
footsteps of Maud Allan in a scene which years ago had become stale.
He wondered that, at any rate, Concepcion should not perceive the
poor, pretentious quality of the girlish exhibition. And as he looked
at the mincing Dialin he pictured the lance-corporal helping to serve
a gun. And as he looked at the youthful, lithe Queenie posturing in
the shower-bath of rays amid the blazing chromatic fantasy of the
room, and his nostrils twitched to her pungent perfume, he pictured
the reverberating shell-factory on the Clyde where girls had their
scalps torn off by unappeasable machinery, and the filling-factory
where five thousand girls stripped themselves naked in order to lessen
the danger of being blown to bits.... After a climax of capering
Queen fell full length on her stomach upon the carpet, her soft chin
accurately adjusted to the edge of the plate. The music ceased. The
gramophone gnashed on the disc until the footman lifted its fang.

Miss I-forget-your-name raised both her feet from the floor, stuck her
legs out in a straight, slanting line, and condescendingly clapped.
Then, seeing that