obbed of love and longing,
desire and denial, pursuit and retreat, surrender and conquest....

On a sonorous phrase it ceased. A flutter of applause ran round the
tables. Lanyard mastered a sense of daze that he saw reflected in the
opening eyes of the woman as she slipped from his arms. In an instant
they were themselves once more, two completely self-contained children
of sophistication, with superb insouciance making nothing of their
public triumph in a rare and difficult performance.

On the way to their table they were intercepted by a woman who, with
two cavaliers, had since the moment of her entrance been standing near
the door of the restaurant, apparently spellbound with admiration.
Through a rising clatter of tongues her voice cut clearly but not at
all unpleasantly.

"Athenais! It is I--Liane."

Inured as he was to the manners of an age which counts its women not
dressed if they are not half undressed, and with his sensibilities
further calloused by a night devoted to restaurants the entree to
which, for women, seemed to be conditioned on at least semi-nudity,
Lanyard was none the less inclined to think he had never seen, this
side of footlights, a gown quite so daring as that which revealed the
admirably turned person of the lady who named herself Liane. There was
so little of it that, he reflected, its cost must have been something
enormous. But in vain that scantiness of drapery: the white body rose
splendidly out of its ineffective wrappings only to be overwhelmed by
an incredible incrustation of jewellery: only here and there did bare
hand's-breadths of flesh unadorned succeed in making themselves
visible.

At the sound of her name Athenais turned with a perfectly indicated
start of surprise which she promptly translated into a little, joyful
cry. The living pillar of ivory, satin and precious stones ran into her
arms, embraced her ardently, and kissed both her cheeks, then releasing
her half-turned to Lanyard.

Glints of trifling malice winked behind the open interest of troubling,
rounded eyes of violet. Lanyard knew himself known.

So he had sacrificed for nothing his beautiful beard!

He uttered a private but heartfelt "Damn!" and bowed profoundly as the
woman, tapping Athenais on the arm with a fan crusted with diamonds,
demanded:

"Present instantly, my dear, this gentleman who tangoes as I have never
seen the tango danced before!"

Forestalling Athenais, Lanyard replied with a whimsic