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 as surely and easily as she vivified her co-artists on the stage.

"You must see my house," she was saying to the Marchesa, and struck with a thought that pleased her, she suggested that they all drive out to it, immediately.

As they were rising to leave, Grover attempted to excuse himself, but Mme. Janvier, her enthusiasm embracing even the most inconsequential member of the group, swept him into her plan with a gesture that took obedience for granted. Léon also insisted, in a manner which seemed to imply that he, in return for services rendered, exacted this show of courtesy from one of the few friends who did him credit. It was obvious that Léon knew nothing of his situation with Olga. If he had known, he would only have shrugged it off his shoulders.

As for Olga, she turned to him with a smile, still tinged with forgiveness, and contrived to let him help her with her coat. If only, her eyes said for her, to protect me against this ogre of a Nussbaum to whom I am obliged to be polite.

With cynical feelings in his heart he followed the others into one of the two motors at the door. Whether by accident or design, he found himself seated next to Olga, and as they sped out of Paris in the dark he was filled with panic, for this contact was wakening a savage within him; his old passion was not only being whipped into flames, but was burning out of him the old romantic respect for the divinity