She did not flinch, accustomed perhaps to such remarks. John, although slightly drunk, was aware of his cruelty and felt penitent. "Don't flare, dearie," she said quietly. He halted at the corner where he turned for the gangway. "Good-bye," he said, somewhat ungallantly, to which she responded by detaching her arm. "Aren't you coming home with me, boysie?" she asked plaintively, her eyes very serious. "No--thanks, not to-night--I don't--I--" but he could not say it. She divined it, however. "I know you don't--and I'll not be the first. You shy darling!" she cried impulsively, taking his face between her hands and kissing his mouth. A moment later she had gone, leaving nothing but a faint odour of stale scent. Pale now, John leaned on the wall while the blood surged to his brain, then, with a heart thumping tumultuously, he found his way back to his seat. The rest of the ballet passed unheeded; his mind was tracking that plaintive little face through the dark house. When the curtain fell on the final divertissement, in accordance with instructions John found his way round to the stage door, in a dark back street, where stood several luxurious motor cars, a small group of young men and women, autograph hunters chiefly, a tout or two, all kept outside the stage door, blazing with light, by a hoarse-voiced man in livery, to whom in turn, each member of the company called "Good night, Billy." At last Wellington and de Courtrai appeared and with them, three young ladies of the ballet, called Fluffy, Pop and Pansy respectively. On the programme they had Russian names, as had his two friends, but their accents betrayed familiarity with Balham. They were pupils in the _corps de ballet_, and for ten minutes--during which they all walked towards Piccadilly Circus, there was an animated discussion of the performance, its errors, and the wickedness of the conductor who had taken the last score through in seven-eight time, causing a collapse of the principals the moment the final curtain had fallen, whereupon he had been summoned to the wings by Lydia Lamanipoff and had his face well slapped for his insolence. Pop declared that it would end that "affair" which had been a subject of current gossip ever since Lydia had thrown over Tamanski for biting her shoulder in the "Bacchanale."