fumes, and proceeded, in a
matter-of-fact way, to paint his face. Meanwhile his valet was flitting
silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon costume; and
Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with his eyes. A
haberdasher's shop might have been kept going for quite a while upon
the contents of Reggie's dressers. His clothing was kept in a room
adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near the door, could see
the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a separate article of
clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding racks, tier upon tier
of them, of every material and colour. There was a closet fitted with
shelves and equipped like a little shoe store--high shoes and low
shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white ones, and each fitted over a
last to keep its shape perfect. These shoes were all made to order
according to Reggie's designs, and three or-four times a year there was
a cleaning out, and those which had gone out of fashion became the prey
of his "man." There was a safe in one closet, in which Reggie's
jewellery was kept.

The dressing-room was furnished like a lady's boudoir, the furniture
upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with
curtains of the same material. There was a huge bunch of roses on the
centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room.

The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which Reggie
critically selected one to match his shirt. "Are you going to take
Alice with you down to the Havens's?" he was asking; and he added,
"You'll meet Vivie Patton down there--she's had another row at home."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Oliver.

"Yes," said the other. "Frank waited up all night for her, and he wept
and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count. Vivie told him to
go to hell."

"Good God!" said Oliver. "Who told you that?"

"The faithful Alphonse," said Reggie, nodding toward his valet. "Her
maid told him. And Frank vows he'll sue--I half expected to see it in
the papers this morning."

"I met Vivie on the street yesterday," said Oliver. "She looked as
chipper as ever."

Reggie shrugged his shoulders. "Have you seen this week's paper?" he
asked. "They've got another of Ysabel's suppressed poems in."--And then
he turned toward Montague to explain that "Ysabel" was the pseudonym of
a young debutante who had fallen under the spell of Baudelaire and
Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such furious er