She came sidling. She was richly clad, very blond, very powdered. Beneath the simper of blue eyes, the hot curl of placid lips and the ringlets of blond hair teasing her tiny ear, Tom saw that she was Jewish. He took her tiny hand, gloved in fawn-colored kid. “It is nice to have you here, Miss Gross. I hope our rough manners won’t shock you.” She propelled herself a little nearer. “Oh, please do, Mr. Rennard!” “You want to be shocked, Miss Gross?” Hill intervened. “But you can’t, Rennard. You don’t know my little Madeline.” The little Madeline simpered and tapped her escort’s mouth with the back of her gloved hand. “How do you know, Christian? Just because _you_ couldn’t.” Bending her body back, she threw her head back also. She gazed at Tom through the lashes of her half-shut eyes. Durthal came up. “Your place is there, old man. Between Lunn and me.” “Good evening, Flora. Say, you have room for Markand? I made him promise he’d be here.” A thick-set woman, with face incredibly composed and large bare arms crossed over the gray width of her dress, nodded to Tom and to the others. “Good evening, Flora.” “Hello, Flora,” the greetings came. Flora did not budge from her place in the kitchen door. Hill dragged Miss Gross through the scatter of chairs. “Oh, Signora Sanni,” he said, “I want to introduce my friend.” Flora Sanni wiped her right hand slowly, methodically on her apron. “Buena sera, Signorina.” She took the gloved hand, dropped it, turned about. Her eyes were steel. She had taken longer to wipe her hands on her apron. Tom moved in Durthal’s power toward the nearer end of the table. A young girl shut the door. “Here you are,” muttered Lagora. She nodded timidly to her neighbors--maliciously to Dounia Smith, a defensive malice--and sat down beside the Marquese. He drew close his chair. The two began muttering together. Lagora leaned forward. The girl bent back from the thrust of his mood and his body. She was a frail creature--a tissue of harried nerves with great black teeming eyes. Her hand tapped on the plate. She lit a cigarette, inhaled a great gust, emptied Lagora’s wine glass and then blew out the smoke. Her body was draped in a short tight smock of blue hung from her shoulders. Her tiny breasts stood up in it quite clear. Lagora’s brows worked up and down. Her big eyes sharpened and cut him. He looked at her twitching shoulders. “Hello, Mr. Rennard,” she cried as she passed him. She threw up a diminutive hand. Her breasts bobbed. “How are you, Lettie?” Tom, taking her hand, had the sense of Lagora smiling with snakish eyes. He passed on. A lumbering boy got up, nodding and saying no word. “Well, Darby?” Tom sat down. “I’ve not seen you in a week.” “A long time,” synchronously growled the other. Tom heard him and laughed. “And the painting?”