too and afterward dance?"

"Something of that sort," he admitted, laughing. But under his
careless gaiety an ugly determination had been hardening; he meant
to go no more to Palla; he meant to welcome any distraction of the
moment to help tide him over the long, grey interval that loomed
ahead--welcome any draught that might mitigate the bitter waters he
was tasting--and was destined to drain to their revolting dregs.

* * * * *

They went to the Palace of Mirrors and were lucky enough to secure a
box.

The food was excellent; the show a gay one.

Between intermissions he took Marya to the floor for a dance or two.
The place was uncomfortably crowded: uniforms were everywhere, too;
and Jim nodded to many men he knew, and to a few women.

And, in the vast, brilliant place, there was not a man who saw Marya
and failed to turn and follow her with his eyes. For Marya had been
fashioned to trouble man. And that primitively constructed and
obviously-minded sex never failed to become troubled.

"We'd better enjoy our champagne," remarked Marya. "We'll be a
wineless nation before long, I suppose."

"It seems rather a pity," he remarked, "that a man shouldn't be free
to enjoy a glass of claret. But if the unbaked and the half-baked, and
the unwashed and the half-washed can't be trusted to practise
moderation, we others ought to abstain, I suppose. Because what is
best for the majority ought to be the law for all."

"If it were left to me," said the girl, "I'd let the submerged drink
themselves to death."

"What on earth are you talking about?" he said. "I thought you were a
socialist!"

"I am. I desire no law except that of individual inclination."

"Why, that's Bolshevism!"

Her laughter rang out unrestrained: "I believe in Bolshevism--for
myself--but not for anybody else. In other words, I'd like to be
autocrat of the world. If I were, I'd let everybody alone unless they
interfered with me."

"And in that event?" he asked, laughing, as the lights all over the
house faded to a golden glimmer in preparation for the second part of
the spectacle. He could no longer see her clearly across the little
table. "What would you do if people interfered with you?" he
repeated.

Marya smiled. The last ray of light smouldered in her tiger-red hair;
the warm, fragrant, breathing youth of her grew vaguer, merging with
the shadows; only the beryl-tinted eyes, which slanted slightly,