almost drowned in a ripple of laughter, a burst
of quite warm applause. He reappeared looking calm and magisterial. The
applause continued, and he had to go back and bow his thanks. The tenor,
who had not been recalled, looked cross and made a movement of his
double chin that suggested bridling.

"Now, Miss Schley!" said the pianist. "You come now!"

"Lady Holme has very kindly consented to go first," she replied.

Then she turned to the French actor and, in atrocious but very
self-possessed French, began to congratulate him on his performance.

"Oh, well--" the pianist hurried up to Lady Holme. "You have
really--very well then--these are the songs! Which do you sing first?
Very hot, isn't it?"

He wiped his long fingers with a silk pocket-handkerchief and took the
music she offered to him.

"The Princesses seem very pleased," he added. "Marteau--charming
composer, yes--very pleased indeed. Which one? '_C'est toi_'? Certainly,
certainly."

He wiped his hands again and held out one to lead Lady Holme to the
platform. But she ignored it gently and went on alone. He followed,
carrying the music and perspiring. As they disappeared Miss Schley got
up and moved to a chair close by the screen that hid the platform. She
beckoned to Leo Ulford and he followed her.

As Lady Holme stepped on to the low platform, edged with a bank of
flowers, it seemed to her as if with one glance she saw everyone in the
crowded room, and felt at least something swiftly of each one's feeling.

The two Princesses sat together looking kind and serious. As she
curtseyed to them they bowed to her and smiled. Behind them she saw a
compact mass of acquaintances: Lady Cardington sitting with Sir Donald
and looking terribly sad, even self-conscious, yet eager; Mrs. Wolfstein
with Mr. Laycock; Mr. Bry, his eyeglass fixed, a white carnation in his
coat; Lady Manby laughing with a fat old man who wore a fez, and many
others. At the back she saw Fritz, standing up and staring at her with
eyes that seemed almost to cry, "Cut her out!" And in the fourth row she
saw a dreary, even a horrible, sight--Rupert Carey's face, disfigured
by the vice which was surely destroying him, red, bloated, dreadfully
coarsened, spotted. From the midst of the wreckage of the flesh his
strange eyes looked out with a vivid expression of hopelessness. Yet in
them burned fires, and in fire there is an essence of fierce purity. The
soul in those eyes seemed longing to burn up