have
seen a 'tart' or drunk a bottle of champagne for two years! Come and
dine with me. We'll go on afterwards to the Troc'."

Mike looked round as if to assure himself that he was back again
dining at Lubi's. It was the same little white-painted gallery,
filled with courtesans, music-hall singers, drunken lords, and
sarcastic journalists. He noticed, however, that he hardly knew a
single face, and was unacquainted with the amours of any of the
women. He inquired for his friends. Muchross was not expected to
live, Laura was underground, and her sister was in America. Joining
in the general hilarity, he learnt that as the singer declined the
prize-fighter was going up in popular estimation. A young and drunken
lord offered to introduce him "to a very warm member."

He felt sure, however, that the Royal would stir in him the old
enthusiasms, and his heart beat when he saw in a box Kitty Carew,
looking exactly the same as the day he had left her; but she insisted
on taking credit for recognizing him--so changed was he. He felt
somewhat provincial, and no woman noticed him, and it was clear that
Kitty was no longer interested in him. The conversation languished,
he did not understand the allusions, and he was surprised and a
little alarmed, indeed, to find that he did not even desire their
attention.

A few weeks afterwards he received an invitation to a ball. It was
from a woman of title, the address was good, and he resolved to go.
It was to one of the Queen Anne houses with which Chelsea abounds,
and as he drove towards it he noted the little windows aflame with
light and colour in the blue summer night. On the carved cramped
staircases women struck him as being more than usually interesting,
and the distinguished air of the company moved him with pleasurable
sensations. A thick creamy odour of white flowers gratified the
nostrils; the slender backs of the girls, the shoulder-blades
squeezed together by the stays, were full of delicate lines and
tints. Mike saw a tall blonde girl, slight as a reed, so blonde that
she was almost an albino, her figure in green gauze swaying. He saw a
girl so brown that he thought of palms and cocoa-nuts; she passed him
smiling, all her girlish soul awake in the enchantment of the dance.
He said--

"No, I don't want to be introduced; she'd only bore me; I know
exactly all she would say."

Studying these, he thought vaguely of dancing a quadrille, and was
glad when the lady said she