almost mechanically had paused within a few yards of the solitary
booth.

"I don't know," she said, with enforced gaiety, "the place seems to
attract me. And I need not look at the spectacle," she added
significantly, as she pointed to a roughly-scribbled notice at the
entrance of the tent: "In aid of the starving poor of Paris."

"There's a good-looking woman who sings, and a hideous mechanical
toy that moves," said one of the young men in the crowd. "It is very
dark and close inside the tent. I was lured in there for my sins, and
was in a mighty hurry to come out again."

"Then it must be my sins that are helping to lure me too at the present
moment," said Marguerite lightly. "I pray you all to let me go in
there. I want to hear the good-looking woman sing, even if I do not
see the hideous toy on the move."

"May I escort you then, Lady Blakeney?" said Lord Tony.

"Nay! I would rather go in alone," she replied a trifle impatiently. "I
beg of you not to heed my whim, and to await my return, there,
where the music is at its merriest."

It had been bad manners to insist. Marguerite, with a little
comprehensive nod to all her friends, left the young cavaliers still
protesting and quickly passed beneath the roughly constructed
doorway that gave access into the booth.

A man, dressed in theatrical rags and wearing the characteristic