Just then, John's attention was attracted by a swift glimpse of a passing head. Its unusual beauty arrested him, the dark vivacious eyes flashing under a head of black bobbed hair. She could not be more than twenty, he thought, she was so slim. The extreme simplicity of her dress, falling without any decoration from shoulder to the knee, emphasised the lightness of her poise. She was a swift darting creature, with a sensuous mouth, crimson and pensive. But there was determination, defiance almost, in every movement of her body. Passion merely smouldered: she could be a creature of sudden contrary moods. She threw John a quick but searching glance as she passed, conscious of her power to attract, and the weakness of all his sex to respond, and yet it was not a challenge so much as a half-contemptuous provocation of his nature. Bailey, observant and detached, did not fail to see the magic fire that had leapt from one to the other. He saw this youth quiver with a sudden agitation, saw the answering challenge of the lithe form that flitted by, sure of the spoil if it cared to possess. "No," said Bailey, laying a hand on John's shoulder, amused at his false assumption of indifference, "don't be another moth. There are too many singed already." The boy laughed, then, with a careless tone----"Who is she?" "The Chelsea Poppy--she's Hoffmann's famous model." He knew then in a moment. So this was the Chelsea Poppy, the much sonneted model of Hoffmann's famous heads. He loathed this forceful Jew's sculpture--its deliberate accentuation of the ugly, its cult of the repulsive, its coarse workmanship, apologised for as the new art. Like others he had wondered how foolish Society women could make themselves so extravagant over this ugly little man, the jerseyed king of the Café de l'Europe, with a court of disorderly disciples. The head of Poppy was famous. In the marble he had loathed its sensuality, the ugliness of the contorted face. But there was a repulsive similarity to the original; it was a cruel travesty of the flower-like beauty he had just seen. "She's--amazing," said John, not trusting himself to say more. "In many ways," added Bailey. "Here's Freddie. It is a perfect first-night, if the Grand Old Man will come." "Curtain up!" came the call. The lounge emptied into the darkened house. The dramatic critics became very serious. II