Several long-haired littérateurs--friends of Bishop's--came up and saluted him and shook his hand, all with a certain elegance and dignity. He, in turn, introduced me, and the conversation at once turned to art, music, and poetry. Whatever the sensational news of the day, whatever the crisis in the cabinet, whatever anything might have been that was stirring the people in the great outside commonplace world, these men and women gave it no heed whatever. What was the gross, hard, eager world to them? Did not the glories of the Golden Sun lend sufficient warmth to their hearts, and were not their vague aspirations and idle hopes ample stimulants to their minds and spirits? They quickly found a responsive mood in us, and this so delighted them that they ordered the drinks. The presiding genius at the piano was a whitehaired, spiritual-looking man, whose snowy locks gave the only indication of his age; for his face was filled with the eternal youthfulness of a careless and contented heart. His slender, delicate fingers told of his temperament, his thin cheeks of his poverty, and his splendid dreamy eyes of the separate life that he lived. Standing on the platform beside him was a man of a very different type. It was' the pianist's function to be merely a musician; but the other man--the musical director--was one from whom judgment, decision, and authority were required. Therefore he was large, powerful, and big- stomached, and had a pumpkin head, and fat, baggy eyes that shone through narrow slits. He now stepped forward and rang a little bell, upon which all talking was instantly hushed. "_Mesdames et messieurs_," he said, in a large, capable voice, "_J'ai l'honneur de vous annoncer que Madame Louise Leroux, nous lira ses dernières oeuvres--une faveur que nous apprécierons tous_." [Illustration: 8192] A young woman--about twenty-three, I should judge--arose from one of the tables where she had been sitting talking with an insipid-looking gentleman adorned with a blond moustache and vacant, staring-eyes; he wore a heavy coat trimmed with astrachan collar and cuffs, which, being open at the throat, revealed the absence of a shirt from his body. A Latin Quarter top-hat was pushed back on his head, and his long, greasy hair hung down over his collar. Madame Leroux smiled affectionately at him as she daintily flicked the ashes from her cigarette and laid it upon the table, and moistened her thin red lips with a yellow liqueur from her glass. He responded with a condescending jerk of his head, and, diving into one of the inner pockets of his coat, brought forth a roll of paper, which she took. A great clapping of hands and loud cries of her name greeted her as she stepped upon the platform, but it was clearly to be seen from her indifferent air that she had been long accustomed to this attention. The big musical director again rang his bell. "_Il était une Fois,_" she said, simply. The pianist fingered the keys softly, and she began to recite.