of rosy-shaded electric candles innumerable. Some chairs were
turned up, waiting for parties. But there were plenty of people there
already; a flower-bed of frocks, made more bright by the black-and-white
border of the men's evening kit.

The ladies were all sitting on the wall seats; their cavaliers sat with
chairs slewed round, watching three or four couples one-stepping among
the tables to the music of that string band, in cream-and-gold uniforms,
who were packed away in a Moorish niche at the top of the room.

I got a burst of louder, madder music as a waiter with a tray pushed
through the swung door; a waft of warmer air, made up of the smells of
coffee, of cigarettes, of hot food, and of those perfumes of which you
catch a whiff if you pass down the Burlington Arcade--oppoponax, lilac,
Russian violet, Phul-nana--all blended together into one tepid,
overpowering whole, and, most penetrating, most unmistakable of all the
scents; the trefle incarnat.... It reminded me that Million would buy a
great spray-bottle of mixed bouquet, and had drenched herself with it,
heedless of my theory that a properly groomed woman needs very little
added perfume.

But where was Miss Million, in the middle of the noise and feasting? Ah!
There! I caught, in a cluster of other colours--green, white, rose, and
gold--the unmistakable metaphorical shriek of the frock I'd begged her
not to wear. "Me cerise evening one." There it was; and there were
Million's sturdily built, rather square little shoulders, and her glossy
black hair that I've learnt to do rather well. She was gazing about her
with jewel-bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks that almost echoed the
cherry-colour of her odious frock, and listening to the chatter of the
golden-haired, sulphur-crested cockatoo, Vi Vassity; there she was; and
there was the Jew they called Leo, and Lady Golightly-Long in a
fantastic Oriental robe of sorts, and a cluster of others. There, too,
towering above them all as he came steering his way across the room, and
looking more like a magazine illustration than ever in evening-dress,
was the Honourable James Burke.

I saw Million's mouth open widely to some lively greeting as he came up;
they were all laughing and chattering together. But I didn't hear a
word, of course. All was blent into an indistinguishable hubbub against
the music. The loudest part of all seemed to be at a table next to Miss
Million and her new friends. This other table was ent