He proffered a green cigarette-case. Sylvia, who felt that she must take advantage of this opportunity to learn something about a sphere of life which was new to her, asked him what it was made of. "Jade, my dear. I brought such heaps of beautiful jade back with me from China. I've even got a jade toilet-set. My dear, it was dreadfully expensive." He giggled. Sylvia, blowing clouds of smoke from her cigarette, thought dreamily what funny things her father would have said about him. "Raymond's going to dance for us," he said, turning to Corydon. "Isn't it too sweet of him?" At that moment somebody leaped into the middle of the room with a wild scream and began to throw himself into all sorts of extraordinary attitudes. "Oh, Raymond, you're too wonderful!" the host ejaculated. "You make me feel quite Bacchic." Sylvia was not surprised that anybody should feel "backache" (she had thus understood her host) in the presence of such contortions. The screaming Raymond was followed into the arena by another lightly clad and equally shrill youth called Sydney, and both of them flung themselves into a choric frenzy, chasing each other round and round, sawing the air with their legs, and tearing roses from their hair to fling at the guests, who flung them back at the dancers. Suddenly Raymond collapsed upon the carpet and began to moan. "What's the matter, my dear?" cried the host, rushing forward and kneeling to support the apparently agonized youth in his arms. "Oh, my foot!" Raymond wailed. "I've trodden on something." "He's trodden on a thorn. He's trodden on a thorn," everybody said at once. Raymond was borne tenderly to a divan, and was so much petted that Sydney became jealous and began to dance again, this time on the top of the piano. Presently everybody else began to dance, and Mr. Corydon would have liked to dance with Sylvia; but she declined. Gondoliers entered with trays of liqueurs, and Sylvia, tasting crème de menthe for the first time, found it so good that she drank four glasses, which made her feel rather drowsy. New guests were continually arriving, to whom she did not pay much attention until suddenly she recognized the baron with Godfrey Hurndale, who at the same moment recognized her. The baron rushed forward and seized Sylvia's arm. She thought he was going to drag her back by force to Mrs. Meares to answer for the missing rent, but he began to arch his unoccupied arm like an excited swan, and call out in his high, mincing voice: "Blackmailers-s-s! blackmailers-s-s!" "They blackmailed me out of four hundred pounds," said Hurndale. "Who brought him here?" the baron cried. "It's-s-s true. Godfrey has been persecuted by these horrid people. Blackmailers-s-s!"