you are here!"

"But do not let us talk about it," she added quickly with a mournful
smile.

"No, no!" he agreed.... "I see you have a piano. I expect you are fond
of music."

"Ah!" she exclaimed in a fresh, relieved tone. "Am I fond of it! I
adore it, quite simply. Do play for me. Play a boston--a two-step."

"I can't," he said.

"But you play. I am sure of it."

"And you?" he parried.

She made a sad negative sign.

"Well, I'll play something out of _The Rosenkavalier_."

"Ah! But you are a _musician_!" She amiably scrutinised him. "And
yet--no."

Smiling, he, too, made a sad negative sign.

"The waltz out of _The Rosenkavalier_, eh?"

"Oh, yes! A waltz. I prefer waltzes to anything."

As soon as he had played a few bars she passed demurely out of the
sitting-room, through the main part of the bedroom into the _cabinet
de toilette_. She moved about in the _cabinet de toilette_ thinking
that the waltz out of _The Rosenkavalier_ was divinely exciting. The
delicate sound of her movements and the plash of water came to him
across the bedroom. As he played he threw a glance at her now and
then; he could see well enough, but not very well because the smoke of
the shortening cigarette was in his eyes.

She returned at length into the sitting-room, carrying a small silk
bag about five inches by three. The waltz finished.

"But you'll take cold!" he murmured.

"No. At home I never take cold. Besides--"

Smiling at him as he swung round on the music-stool, she undid the
bag, and drew from it some folded stuff which she slowly shook
out, rather in the manner of a conjurer, until it was revealed as a
full-sized kimono. She laughed.

"Is it not marvellous?"

"It is."

"That is what I wear. In the way of chiffons it is the only fantasy
I have bought up to the present in London. Of course, clothes--I have
been forced to buy clothes. It matches exquisitely the stockings, eh?"

She slid her arms into the sleeves of the transparency. She was a
pretty and highly developed girl of twenty-six, short, still lissom,
but with the fear of corpulence in her heart. She had beautiful hair
and beautiful eyes, and she had that pucker of the forehead denoting,
according to circumstances, either some kindly, grave preoccupation or
a benevolent perplexity about something or other.

She went near him and clasped hands round his neck, and whispered:

"Your waltz was adorable. You are an artist."

And with her shoulders