rs of her dance, and then stopped short and waited
solemnly. She still stood, glass in hand.

"It is my birthday. God and I alone know which one. I drink to
myself. I wish myself good luck. _Vive_ myself. _Vive_ Gyp Labelle
and all who 'ave loved 'er and love 'er and shall love 'er!"

She drank her wine to the last drop, and the band began to play again,
knitting the broken, noisy congratulations into a kind of triumphal
chorus. It was very crude and theatrical and effective. It did not
matter, any more than it matters in a well-acted play, that the whole
incident had been rehearsed. It was as calculated and as spontaneous
as that nightly, irresistible burst of laughter.

Rufus Cosgrave stood up shyly in his place. Had he been dressed a
shade less perfectly and resisted the gardenia in his button-hole, he
would have been better disguised. As it was, there could be no
mistaking a little fellow from the suburbs who had got into bad
company. And in spite of the West Africa swamp and its peculiar forms
of despairing vice, he was so frightfully innocent that he did not know
it,

"And--and we're here to--to wish you luck too--that you go on--as you
are--dancing and laughing--making us all laugh and dance with
you--however down in the dumps we are--for ever and ever--and to bring
you offerings--for you to remember us by."

There must have been a great deal more to it than that. Stonehouse
could see the notes clenched in one tense hand, but they had become
indecipherable and he let them drop. He came from his place, stumbling
over the back of somebody's chair, to where she stood, and laid a small
square box done up in tissue paper at her side. She laughed and caught
him by the ear, and kissed him on both flaming cheeks.

"A precedent--fair play for all!" the man opposite Stonehouse shouted.

They came then, one after another, treading on each other's heels, and
she waited for them, an audacious figure of Pleasure receiving custom,
and kissed them, shading her kiss subtly so that each one became a
secret little joke out of the past or lying in wait in the future, at
which the rest could guess as they chose. Some of the women whom she
knew best joined in the stream. They bore her, for the most part, an
odd affinity and no ill-will. They had set out on the same road and
had failed, and their failure stared out of their crudely painted
faces. But perhaps they were grateful to her for not having forgotten