Instinctively, she stopped to examine a portrait of Yvonde Yalta in the open vestibule of the Dream. She devoured it: Really...? Really? She resembled more some Girton guy than a great coquette. All down the street indeed, at the theatre doors, were studies of artists, scenes from current plays. By the time she found herself back in Piccadilly Circus again Miss Sinquier was nearly fainting from inanition. She peered around. In Regent Street, she reflected, almost certainly, there must be some nice tea-shop, some cool creamery.... How did this do? “The Café Royal!” Miss Sinquier fluttered in. By the door, the tables all proved to be taken. Such a noise! Everyone seemed to be chattering, smoking, lunching, casting dice, or playing dominoes. She advanced slowly through a veil of opal mist, feeling her way from side to side with her parasol. It was like penetrating deeper and deeper into a bath. She put out her hand in a swimming, groping gesture, twirling as she did so, accidentally, an old gentleman’s moustache. Thank heaven! There, by that pillar, was a vacant place. She sank down on to the edge of a crowded couch, as in a dream. The tall mirrors that graced the walls told her she was tired. “Bring me some China tea,” she murmured to a passing waiter, “and a bun with currants in it.” She leaned back. The realization of her absolute loneliness overcame her suddenly. Poor Mrs. Bromley, poor kindly little soul! The tears sprang to her eyes. It would have been a relief to have blotted her face against some neighbouring blouse or waistcoat and to have had a hearty cry. “Excuse me, may I ask you to be so good——” Just before her on the table was a stand for matches. With a mournful glance she slid the apparatus from her in the direction of an adolescent of a sympathetic, somewhat sentimental, appearance, who, despite emphatic whiskers, had the air of a wildly pretty girl. To have cherished such an one as a brother! Miss Sinquier reflected, as the waiter brought her tea. While consuming it, she studied the young man’s chiselled profile from the corners of her eyes. Supporting his chin upon the crook of a cane, he was listening, as if enthralled, to a large florid man, who, the centre of a small, rapt group, was relating in a high-pitched, musical voice, how “Poor dear Chaliapin one day had asked for Kvass and was given Bass. And that reminds me,” the speaker said, giving the table an impressive thump, “of the time when Anna Held—let go.” Miss Sinquier glowed. Here were stage folk, artists, singers ... that white, thin girl in the shaggy hat opposite was without doubt a temperament akin. She felt drawn to speak. “Can you tell me how I should go to Croydon?” she asked. The words came slowly, sadly almost.... “To Croydon?” “You can’t go to Croydon.” “Why not?” The young man of the whiskers looked amused. “When we all go to Spain to visit Velasquez——” “Goya——!” “Velasquez!” “Goya! Goya! Goya!”