The fat woman
joined them.

Lennox must have introduced Paliser, for Margaret could see them all
talking at once. Then Lennox again looked about, saw Margaret and her
mother, and came over.

"Who's your friend?" Mrs. Austen asked.

Lennox' eyes caressed Margaret. Then he turned to her mother. "She is a
Miss Cara. Cassy Cara her name is. I know her father. He is a
violinist."

And my daughter is second fiddle, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "How
interesting!"

With his sombre air, Lennox summarised it. "She is studying for the
opera. The woman with her, Madame Tamburini, is her coach. You may have
heard of her."

"A fallen star," Mrs. Austen very pleasantly remarked. Quite as
pleasantly she added: "The proper companion for a soiled dove."

The charm of that was lost. Margaret, who had not previously seen this
girl but who had heard of her from Lennox, was speaking to him.

"It was her father, was it?" Then, dismissing it, she asked anxiously:
"But do tell me, Keith, what did the medium say?"

"That I would be up for murder."

Margaret's eyes widened. But, judging it ridiculous, she exclaimed: "Was
that all?"

"All!" Lennox grimly repeated. "What more would you have?" Abruptly he
laughed. "I don't wonder Mrs. Amsterdam wanted her money back."

On the stage, from jungles of underwear, legs were tossing. The
orchestra had become frankly canaille. Moreover the crowd of Goodness
knows who had increased. A person had the temerity to elbow Mrs. Austen
and the audacity to smile at her. It was the finishing touch.

She poked at Margaret. "Come."

As they moved on, a man smiled at Lennox, who, without stopping, gave
him a hand.

He was an inkbeast. But there was nothing commercial in his appearance.
Ordinarily, he looked like a somnambulist. When he was talking, he
resembled a comedian. In greeting Lennox he seemed to be in a pleasant
dream. The crowd swallowed him.

"Who was that?" Mrs. Austen enquired.

"Ten Eyck Jones."

"The writer?" asked this lady, who liked novels, but who preferred to
live them.

Meanwhile Paliser was talking to Cassy Cara and the Tamburini. The
latter listened idly, with her evil smile. Yet Paliser's name was very
evocative. The syllables had fallen richly on her ears.

Cassy Cara had not heard them and they would have conveyed nothing to
her if she had. She was a slim girl, with a lot of auburn hair which was
docked. The careless-minded thought her pretty. She was what is far