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 Hilary Vance, watching her dancing with the genuine artist's eye for form, would presently begin to mutter and ruffle his mop of curls. Sometimes he would cry, "Oh, what a poor thing the pencil is! Never—no, never shall I be able to get into a drawing the whole of the motion in one of Pollyooly's movements once she has warmed up to her dancing."

"If you could get the whole of Pollyooly dancing, you would set down, plain for all who have eyes to see, the secret of the Dionysiac ecstasy," said Mr. James one day. "Pollyooly is the Mænad? When she warms to her dancing, I see the Bacchic frenzy rise. But I—I am a wise man; I know that manufacturers do not make the paper on which either pencil or pen can set down these things."

About a month, or perhaps it was five weeks, after the going of the Esmeralda, Pollyooly had just finished dusting the bedroom of the Honorable John Ruffin one morning when there came a knocking on the door of his chambers.

She went to it as she was, duster in hand, the sleeves of her print frock rolled up to her elbows, and opened it.

There at the threshold stood Lord Ronald