Then, as almost always happened in these boarding-house sprees, some
wag turned on the music-box in the corridor and the duet from _La
Mascotte_ together with the waltz from _La Diva_ rose in
confusion upon the air; the Superman and Celia danced a couple of
waltzes and the party wound up with everybody singing a
_habanera_, until they wearied and each owl flew off to his nest.




CHAPTER IV

Oh, love, love!--What's Don Telmo Doing?--Who is Don
Telmo?--Wherein the Student and Don Telmo Assume Certain
Novelesque Proportions.


The Baroness was hardly ever seen in the house, except during the
early hours of the morning and the night. She dined and supped
outside. If the landlady was to be credited, she was an adventuress
whose position varied considerably, for one day she would be moving to
a costly apartment and sporting a carriage, while the next she would
disappear for several months in the germ-ridden hole of some cheap
boarding-house.

The Baroness's daughter, a child of some twelve or fourteen years,
never appeared in the dining-room or in the corridor; her mother
forbade all communication with the lodgers. Her name was Kate. She was
a fair girl, very light-complexioned and exceedingly winsome. Only the