c, Vic,' he murmured, 'can't you love me a little?'

She put her hand behind his neck and once more kissed his lips. He must
be lulled, but not into security.

Victoria had never realised her strength and her freedom so well as that
night, as she leant back in her box. Her face and breast, the Major's
shirt front, were the only spots of light which emerged from the
darkness of the box as if pictured by a German impressionist; down
below, under the mist, the damned souls revelled in the cheap seats;
they swayed, a black mass speckled with hundreds of white collars,
dotted with points of fire in the bowls of pipes. By the side of the
men, girls in white blouses or crude colours, shrouded in the mist of
tobacco smoke. Now and then a ring coiled up from a cigar in the stalls,
swirled in the air for a moment and then broke.

Just behind the footlights blazing over the blackness, a little fat man,
with preposterous breeches, a coat of many colours, a yellow wisp of
hair clashing with his vinous nose, sang of the Bank and his manifold
accounts. A faint salvo of applause ushered him out, then swelled into a
tempest as the next number went up.

'Tommy Bung, you're in luck,' said the Major, taking off Victoria's
wrap.

She craned forward to see. A woman with masses of fair hair, bowered in
blue velvet, took a long look at her from the stage box through an opera
glass.

The curtain went up. There was a roar of applause. Tommy Bung was ready
for the audience and had already fallen into a tub of whitewash. The
sorry object extricated itself. His red nose shone, star like. He rolled
ferocious eyes at a girl. The crowd rocked with joy. Without a word the
great Tommy Bang began to dance. At once the hall followed the splendid
metre. Up and down, up and down, twisting, curvetting, Tommy Bung held
his audience spellbound with rhythm. They swayed sharply with the
alternations.

Victoria watched the Major. His hands were beating time. Tommy Bung
brought his effort to a conclusion by beating the floor, the soles of
his feet, the scenery, and punctuated the final thwack with a well timed
leap on the prompter's box.

Victoria was losing touch with things. Waves of heat seemed to overwhelm
her; little figures of jugglers, gymnasts, performing dogs, passed
before her eyes like arabesques. Then again raucous voices. The crowd
was applauding hysterically. It was Number Fourteen, whose great name
she was fated never to know. Unsteadily p