n intimate undertone to Audrey: "I hope
you don't _mind_ coming to the ball to-night. We really didn't know------"
She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey's black, completed the
communication.

Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered and answered:

"Oh, no! I shall like it very much."

"You've been up against life!" murmured Tommy in a melting voice, gazing at
her. "But how wonderful all experience is, isn't it. I once had a husband.
We separated--at least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife."

Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all that sympathy, and she
was exceedingly alarmed by the revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The
widow was the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved her from
a chat in which she could not conceivably have held her own.

"Excuse me being so clumsy," said Tommy contritely. "Another time." And
she waved her cigarette to the waiter in demand for the bill.

It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and while Tommy was
examining the bill, that the first violin and leader, in a magenta coat,
approached the table, and with a bow offered his violin deferentially to
Musa. Many heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only shrugged
his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of refusal signified that he
had to leave. Whereupon the magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a
Hungarian dance as he went.

"Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris--perhaps in the
world," Tommy whispered casually to Audrey. "He used to play here, till
Dauphin discovered him."

Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at the contemplation of
her blind stupidity.

Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important, vivid, masterful. She
had been mistaking him for a nice, ornamental, useless boy.

CHAPTER X

FANCY DRESS

Just as the cafe-restaurant had been an intensification of ordinary life,
so was the ball in Dauphin's studio an intensification of the
cafe-restaurant. It had more colour, more noise, more music, more heat,
more varied kinds of people, and, of course, far more riotous movement than
the cafe-restaurant. The only quality in which the cafe-restaurant stood
first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had not attempted to rival
the cafe-restaurant in the matter of food and drink. And that there was no
general hope of his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many of
the more experienced