The host of the occasion was Edwin Marmaduke, painter. He was at present engaged in spooning Arabian incense out of a cocoa-tin and putting it into a large bronze thurible, which hung before a plaster replica of Rodin’s “Le Baiser.” The incense caught fire, and dense clouds of fragrant smoke filled the little studio. Then Marmaduke turned his pale but agreeable face to his guests. “No, do it now!” he commanded. “Perhaps you and Arthura will bring her with it.” So John Potts struck a few minor chords, and Arthura Lewis lifted her pale-green mantle in both thin arms, smiled at the low ceiling, closed her eyes, and danced. She did not really dance. She merely bent and kicked and gestured, approximately in rhythm with the music. She was not really Miss Arthura Lewis, either. Her first name, which she had discarded as too usual, was Alice and her last name was Potts, for she was the pianist’s wife. They were known to live together in the little apartment across Patchin Place from Marmaduke’s studio, but the fact of their marriage was scrupulously kept a secret from the other members of their emancipated circle. No liaison was ever hidden from the world more zealously than was the regularity and mid-Victorian respectability of this seeming “free comradeship.” So John Potts played and Arthura danced, and the theme they were interpreting was Grace Mallon’s soul. Edwin Marmaduke’s eyes were turned toward Arthura, but he did not see her. Nor did he see Grace’s soul. He saw her eyes--very gray and lovely--and her hair, which was golden-brown and had an indefinable air of mirth about it. Marmaduke loved Grace better than cigarettes, or incense, or art; better even than the school of painting of which he was the acknowledged master, the school which proudly accepted a name first derisively given it--the Incomprehensiblists. So, while Arthura twisted and turned and John Potts hammered out discords, he thought of Grace’s beauty and charm. To do him justice, he did not think of her great wealth. In fact, he did not like to think of her wealth, for that wealth came from her father’s success in a most unesthetic business. Grace was the daughter of “Try a Tin To-day” Mallon, who was known in the world of canned goods as the Salmon King. There was no vulgar hand-clapping after the artists had finished their interpretation of Grace’s soul; but the Rev. Morris Gildell rattled his spoon against the sides of his teacup, while Mrs. Anna Watkins Wilbur sighed ecstatically and clanked her chain of heavy amber beads. Even in the act of lighting a cigarette, John Potts started dramatically and pointed toward the open window. “La voilà!” he exclaimed. “We have summoned her! I hear the rumble of her chariot-wheels.”