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 doorway, as she became aware that the standing group within was listening to a contralto of imposing, but finely moulded, proportions, singing La Chevelure. Her eye aimed its way across the room to where the woman stood, tall, handsome, massive, her blue-black hair, knotted in the back and bit by a coral comb, drawn severely away from her white face, slit by magenta lips. The singer, Campaspe next observed, wore a black velvet gown, short in front, but trailing behind, thickly embroidered in a design of bursting pomegranates, fashioned of seedpearls and rose tourmalines. This, she reflected, was no time or place to sing this song, certainly not with the shameless effrontery with which this woman sang it. A mood of embarrassment, a cold reaction, beset the room.

Campaspe's eye roved, although her ear was still attentive: standing on the dais near the performer, she saw Isabel Pollanger, elaborately enveloped in white satin, with, Campaspe thought, a good deal of the air of a superdreadnought in attendance on a masquerade garden-party. Across the floor, in the grateful vicinity of a lady with pale goldengreen hair, almost the shade of sea-foam, Paul hovered. She caught a glimpse of Hubert Miles and his wife, and of the Duquesa de Azul, who was said to be déclassée, but who went everywhere in spite of her noisome reputation. The Duquesa, Campaspe reflected, had chien. Nearer at hand were the towering blond, Frederic Richards, who