ourage--altered
Thessalie's features now, until it became a fixed and pretty mask.

"Contrive to give me a moment alone with you this evening," she
whispered. "My need is great, Garry."

"Whenever you say! Now?"

"No. I want to talk to that young girl first."

They walked over to where Dulcie stood by the piano, silent and
self-possessed.

"Thessa," he said, "this is Miss Soane, who graduated from high school
to-day, and in whose honour I am giving this little party." And to
Dulcie he said: "Miss Dunois and I were friends when I lived in
France. Please tell her about your picture, which you and I are
doing." He turned as he finished speaking, and went forward to welcome
Esme Trenor and Damaris Souval, who happened to arrive together.

"Oh, the cunning little girl over there!" exclaimed the tall and
lovely Damaris, greeting Barres with cordial, outstretched hands.
"Where did you find such an engaging little thing?"

"You don't recognise her?" he asked, amused.

"I? No. Should I?"

"She's Dulcie Soane, the girl at the desk down-stairs!" said Barres,
delighted. "This is her party. She has just graduated from high
school, and she----"

"Belongs to Barres," interrupted Esme Trenor in his drawling voice.
"Unusual, isn't she, Damaris?--logical anatomy, ornamental, vague
development; nice lines, not obvious--like yours, Damaris," he added
impudently. Then waving his lank hand with its over-polished nails: "I
like the indefinite accented with one ripping value. Look at that
hair!--lac and burnt orange rubbed in, smeared, then wiped off with
the thumb! You follow the intention, Barres?"

"You talk too much, Esme," interrupted Damaris tartly. "Who is that
lovely being talking to the little Soane girl, Garry?"

"A friend of my Paris days--Thessalie Dunois----" Again he checked
himself to turn and greet Corot Mandel, subtle creator and director of
exotic spectacles--another tall and rather heavily built man, with a
mop of black and shiny hair, a monocle, and sanguine features slightly
oriental.

With Corot Mandel had come Elsena Helmund--an attractive woman of
thoroughbred origin and formal environment, and apparently fed up with
both. For she frankly preferred "grades" to "registered stock," and
she prowled through every art and theatrical purlieu from the Mews to
Westchester, in eternal and unquiet search for an antidote to the
sex-ennui which she erroneously believed to be an intellectual
necessity for self-expr