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 had done was to make brief occasional and polite answers to intrusive questions.

"You're tired so we'll drop you first," Vida said to Lucy as they started off in the taxi.

"The air will do me good," Lucy insisted, so as to have a few moments alone with Vermillion to ask him about her ballet.

He sat, happily drunk, between the maneuvers.

They dropped Vida first.

But with her hand in his until they arrived at her house it was hard to ask him.

Only when about to get out of the taxi was she able to manage. "I'm not going to bother you now, but one of these days I want you to tell me exactly what you thought of my ballet."

"No one has to tell you about the effect after the response tonight," he hedged. What had stood out to him was how she had shone through as a woman in the well-devised pastiche impression of the boudoir painter, "but I hope I will see you again before I sail a week from Thursday."

He kissed her cheek gently, not wanting to leave her now but remembering the mother up there.

Tears welled in her eyes, but he didn't notice.

Chapter 34

THEY COME AND GO

" Mail first, that Ben Twadell is a friend of Ilona's and Vent's so we're sure to get a review," Lucy said when Vida arrived at noon with the newspapers.

"It's a wonderful headline," Vida said, folding back the pages. She read:

"

"Last night at the Langtry there was revealed to a large cheering audience a bright new star in the firmament of the art of Rh