remained distinct.

Her voice came to him through the music: "If I were autocrat, any man
who dared oppose me would have his choice."

"What choice?"

The music swelled toward a breathless crescendo.

She said: "Oppose me and you shall learn!----"

The house burst into a dazzling flood of moon-tinted light, all
thronged with slim shapes whirling in an enchanted dance. Then clouds
seemed to gather; the moon slid behind them, leaving a frosty
demi-darkness through which, presently, snow began to fall.

The girl leaned toward him, watching the spectacle in silence. Perhaps
unconsciously her left hand, satin-smooth, slipped over his--as though
the contact were a symbol of enjoyment shared.

Light broke the next moment, revealing the spectacle on stage and
floor in all its tinsel magnificence--snow-nymphs, polar-bears, all
capering madly until an unearthly shriek heralded the coming of a
favorite clown, who tumbled all the way down the stage steps and
continued hysterically turning flip-flaps, cart-wheels, and
somersaults until he landed with a crash at the foot of the steps
again.

* * * * *

A large, highly coloured and over-glossy man, passing under their box
during a dancing intermission, bowed rather extravagantly to Jim. He
recognised Angelo Puma, with contemptuous amusement at his impudence.

It was evident, too, that Puma was quite ready to linger if
encouraged--anxious, in fact, to extend his hand.

But his impudence had already ceased to amuse Jim, and he said
carelessly to Marya, in a voice perfectly audible to Puma:

"There goes a man who, in collusion with a squinting partner of his,
once beat me out of a commission."

Puma's heavy, burning face turned abruptly from Marya, whom he had
been looking at; and he continued on across the floor. And Jim forgot
him.

* * * * *

They remained until the place closed. Then he took her home.

It was an apartment overlooking the park from Fifty-ninth Street--a
big studio and apparently many comfortable rooms--a large, still place
where no servants were in evidence and where thick velvety carpets
from Ushak and Sultanabad muffled every footfall.

She had insisted on his entering for a moment. He stood looking about
him in the great studio, where Vanya's concert-grand loomed up, a
sprawling, shadowy shape under the dim drop-light which once had been
a mosque-lamp in Samar