The supper party that night at the Folies Bergeres was unexpectedly gay, although, in one respect, the arrangements made by Itash miscarried. Mademoiselle Yvonne had found a friend, a Belgian young lady, who had attained some celebrity in the music halls as Mathilde Leroy, and some notoriety in the Press, owing to the number of her admirers and the eccentricity of her toilettes. Itash, who preferred to retain his own dancing companion, invited Mademoiselle Mathilde to make a partie carree. But though Cornelius Blunn was graciousness itself and the hilarity of the little party was chiefly due to his efforts, he evinced a partiality for Mademoiselle Yvonne which was somewhat disconcerting for her escort, and most disappointing for Mademoiselle Mathilde.

“You will make him jealous, my poor Itash,” Yvonne declared, laughing, as, for the third time following, she suffered Blunn to lead her amongst the dancers. “He likes so to dance with me, the poor boy. Mathilde wearies him, for she talks of nothing but her jewels, and her gowns, and her need for money.”

“And what do you talk to him about?” Blunn asked.

She sighed a little.

“Of what is there one can speak,” she complained, “with such as Itash? Oh, he is a good boy. He never flirts with the other girls, and he gives what he can. But women to him are just things without a soul. Often I wish that I had a friend who lived in the great world and who would speak to me of the things he did, of his triumphs, even of his troubles. That would make life more interesting. Some one, for example, like Monsieur.”

“Does Itash never speak to you of serious things?” he persisted.

“Never, one word,” she answered fervently,

“Do you think that he ever spoke to Cleo of such?”

“But why?” she demanded. “I have as much intelligence as Cleo, and he preferred me. It was unfortunate for Cleo, but it came about so. It is not all happiness, Monsieur Blunn,” she whispered, “to have for a friend a young man often so morose and gloomy. Because I dance with you and he sees that I am happy, he will scarcely speak to me for days. He will not stay away. Oh, no. I shall have no liberty. When he has finished his work he will come, and lie still and smoke, and watch me. I must be there for him to look at, to dance for him, if he wishes it, but of conversation, of companionship, of the good time together,—nothing.”

“Yet you came with him, here.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“He is constant,” she admitted. “In his way he is generous. What would you have? He deserted another and came to me. When another comes whom I prefer I shall desert him. It is the life.”

He leaned and whispered something in her ear. She laughed back at him softly.

“A man like you,” she murmured. “That would be paradise for any girl. See, let us sit and talk. Itash is dancing with Mathilde, after all. He swore that he would not again. But there they go. We will sit down. I will have some more champagne. We will talk, yes.”

They left the dancers and sat down at their table. Blunn gave an order to the waiter who filled their glasses and departed for more wine.

“He dances well, at any rate,” Blunn remarked, watching Itash and Mathilde. Yvonne was looking into her gold mirror, with a little powder puff poised between her fingers.

“He dances well, but like a monkey,” she declared, without looking away. “He is what I call a gymnast. He does not make you feel the joy of it.”

She suddenly pushed her vanity case on one side. She leaned across towards him; all the coquetry of her nature shone out of her eyes, lured him from her curving lips.

“Ah, Monsieur,” she said, “you make me speak unkindly but I think that you make me love you. Shall I? Would you have me love you?”

“Mademoiselle, it would only be fair,” he replied. “For you I adore.”

“It is true?” she whispered, leaning a little closer. “You assure me that it is true?”

He smiled at her. Then he patted her hand.

“It is true, Mademoiselle Yvonne,” he assured her, “yet listen to me. I shall not treat you as my young friend Count Itash does. I shall speak to you as a woman of understanding, of sympathy, of sweetness.”

&............