Maggie was talking to a man whom Nigel had just brought in, and who was bending over her in obvious admiration.

Nita, with her wealth of cosmetics, her over-red lips, stared curiously at this possible rival, with her clear skin, her beautiful neck and shoulders, her hair dressed close to her head, her air of quiet, almost singular distinction.
"The young lady," she confessed, "wears her clothes well for an English woman.

She is _bien soignee_, but she looks a little difficult." His eyes followed the direction of hers, and her object was achieved.
She read correctly the light that gleamed in them.
"I may come to-night ?" she asked quietly.
He shook his head.
"Not again," he replied.
A violinist now held the stage, a Pole newly come to London.

La Belle Nita closed her eyes.

For a few minutes her sorrow seemed to throb to the minor music to which she was listening.
"For all my work, then," she said presently, "for the suffering and the risk, there is to be nothing ?" "Is it nothing for you to be invited to live in whatsoever manner you choose ?" he remonstrated.
"It is little," she replied steadily.