"Come in, then, poltroon!" She cooed softly and encouragingly from the bedroom, where Marthe was busy with her.

The door between the bedroom and the drawing-room was open. G.J., humming, obeyed the invitation and sat down on the bed between two heaps of clothes. Christine was very gay; she was like a child. She had apparently quite forgotten her migraine and also the incident of the policeman. She snatched the cigarette from G.J.'s mouth, took a puff, and put it back again. Then she sat in front of the large mirror and did her hair while Marthe buttoned her boots. Her corset fitted beautifully, and as she raised her arms above her head under the shaded lamp G.J. could study the marvellous articulation of the arms at the bare shoulders. The close atmosphere was drenched with femininity. The two women, one so stylish and the other by contrast piquantly a heavy slattern, hid nothing whatever from him, bestowing on him with perfect tranquillity the right to be there and to watch at his ease every mysterious transaction.... The most convincing proof that Christine was authentically young! And G.J. had the illusion again that he was in the Orient, and it was extraordinarily agreeable. The recollection of the scene of the Lechford Committee amused him like a pantomime witnessed afar off through a gauze curtain. It had no more reality than that. But he thought better of the committee now. He perceived the wonderful goodness of it and of its work. It really was running those real hospitals; it had a real interest in them. He meant to do his very best in the accounts department. After all, he had been a lawyer and knew the routine of an office and the minutest phenomena of a ledger. He was eager to begin.

"How findest thou me?"

She stood for inspection.

She was ready, except the gloves. The angle of her hat, the provocation of her veil—these things would have quickened the pulse of a Patagonian. Perfume pervaded the room.

He gave the classic response that nothing could render trite:

"Tu es exquise."

She raised her veil just above her mouth....

In the drawing-room she hesitated, and then settled down on the piano-stool like a bird alighting and played a few bars from the Rosenkavalier waltz. He was thunderstruck, for she had got not only the air but some of the accompaniment right.

"Go on! Go on!" he urged her, marvelling.

She turned, smiling, and shook her head.

"That is all that I can recall to myself."

The obvious sincerity of his appreciation delighted her.

"She is really musical!" he thought, and was convinced that while looking for a bit of coloured glass he had picked up an emerald. Marthe produced his overcoat, and when he was ready for the street Christine gazed at him and said:

"For the true chic, there are only Englishmen!"