of the people at the little tables. Three or four in the rear ranks had
risen to their feet to get a better look at him and his companion.

Some one behind us chuckled aloud. "They say Mariana beats him."

"Evidently!"

The dancer was aware of the flutter, and called Harman's attention to it
with a touch upon his arm and a laugh and a nod of her violent plumage.

At that he seemed to rouse himself somewhat: his head rolled heavily
over upon his shoulder, the lids lifted a little from the red-shot eyes,
showing a strange pride when his gaze fell upon the many staring faces.

Then, as the procession moved again and the white automobile with it,
the sottish mouth widened in a smile of dull and cynical contempt: the
look of a half-poisoned Augustan borne down through the crowds from the
Palatine after supping with Caligula.

Ward pulled my sleeve.

"Come," he said, "let us go over to the Luxembourg gardens where the air
is cleaner."




CHAPTER II