saucer-like
eyes that greedily drank in her surroundings. But her lashes were long,
and she could veil her glance so that her brilliant face looked as if
the shutters had been closed on her soul. Across her brows a bar of
blue-black marked the passage of her eyebrows--which sable line was
matched by her abundant hair, worn in overshadowing clusters. She
dressed winter and summer in scarlet, and her stage name was
Aholibah--bestowed upon her by some fantastic poet who had not read
Ezekiel, but Swinburne. It was rumoured by her intimates that her real
name was Clotilde Durval, that her mother had been a seamstress....

With a sinking at the heart Ambroise saw her enter in the company of the
same gentleman she had brought the previous evening. The garcon did not
analyze this strange, jealous feeling, for he was too busily employed in
seating his guests and relieving the man of his hat and walking-stick.
An insolent chap it was, with his air of an assured conqueror and the
easy bearing of wealth. There was little discussion as to the order--a
certain brand of wine, iced beyond recognition for any normal palate,
was always served to Aholibah. She loved "needles on her tongue," she
asseverated if any one offered her weaker stuff. That July night she
looked like a piratical craft that had captured a sleek merchantman for
prize. She was all smoothness; Ambroise alone detected the retracted
claws of the leopardess. She blazed in the electric illumination, and
her large hat, with its swelling plumes, threw her dusky features into
shadow--her eyes seemed far away under its brim and glowed with unholy
phosphorescence.

While he arranged the details of the silver wine-pail in the other room,
the chef asked him if the Princess Comet had arrived. Ambroise almost
snarled--much to the astonishment of the Gascon. And when the sommelier
attempted to help him with the wine, he was elbowed vigorously. Ambroise
must have been drinking too much, said the boys. Joseph rather curiously
inspected his waiter as he made his accustomed round in the cafe. But,
pale as usual, Ambroise stood near his table, his whole bearing an
intent and thoroughly professional one. Joseph was satisfied and drove
the chef back to the kitchen.

The young Alsatian had never seen Aholibah look so radiant. She was in
high spirits, and her pungent talk aroused her companion from incipient
moroseness. After midnight the party grew--some actresses from a near-by
theatre