utchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the
Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the
tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc,
for the national dance of Paranoya contained three hundred and
fifteen recognized steps; but everybody tried to. A new revue, "Hullo,
Caoutchouc," had been produced with success. And the pioneer of the
dance, the peerless Maraquita, a native Paranoyan, still performed it
nightly at the music-hall where she had first broken loose.

The caoutchouc fascinated Roland Bleke. Maraquita fascinated him more.
Of all the women to whom he had lost his heart at first sight, Maraquita
had made the firmest impression upon him. She was what is sometimes
called a fine woman.

She had large, flashing eyes, the physique of a Rugby International
forward, and the agility of a cat on hot bricks.

There is a period of about fifty steps somewhere in the middle of the
three hundred and fifteen where the patient, abandoning the comparative
decorum of the earlier movements, whizzes about till she looks like a
salmon-colored whirlwind.

That was the bit that hit Roland.

Night after night he sat in his stage-box, goggling at Maraquita and
applauding wildly.

One night an attendant came to his box.

"Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr. Roland Bleke? The Senorita Maraquita
wishes to speak to you."

He held open the door of the box. The possibility of refusal did not
appear to occur to him. Behind the scenes at that theater, it was
generally recognized that when the Peerless One wanted a thing, she got
it--quick.

They were alone.

With no protective footlights between himself and her, Roland came to
the conclusion that he had made a mistake. It was not that she was any
less beautiful at the very close quarters imposed by the limits of
the dressing-room; but he felt that in falling in love with her he had
undertaken a contract a little too large for one of his quiet, diffident
nature. It crossed his mind that the sort of woman he really liked was
the rather small, drooping type. Dynamite would not have made Maraquita
droop.

For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on
his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this
leading question:

"You love me, _hein_?"

Roland nodded feebly.

"When men make love to me, I send them away--so."

She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to