"Daughters of pleasure, one and all,
Of form and feature delicate,
Of bodies slim, and bosoms small,
With feet and fingers white and straight,
Your eyes are bright, your grace is great
To hold your lovers' hearts in thrall;
Use your red lips before too late,
Love ere love flies beyond recall."

Her voice dropped and her fingers tinkled over the strings. René de
Montigny turned his dark, well-featured face in a sweeping leer that
seemed to taste the familiar graces with gusto. "Devilish good
advice, Dollies," he shouted, and as he spoke he hugged the nearest
girl close to him, and tilting up her chin with his free hand,
kissed her noisily. The girl squealed a little at his roughness; the
other pairs laughed and clasped after his example, only the singer,
unheeding, lifted her sweet voice again, and this time there was a
savour of gall in the sweetness of the honey:

"For soon the golden hair is grey,
And all the body's lovely line
In wrinkled meanness slipped astray;
The limbs so round and ripe and fine
Shrivelled and withered; quenched the shine
That made your eyes as bright as day:
So, ladies, hear these words of mine,
Love, ere love flutter far away."

The drift of the music seemed sadder than before, and there was a
little silence when the last words floated away into the blackened