The young countess was, according to the society column, decidedly vivacious. This was her first visit to the United States, and she was collecting scalps as well as impressions. Alexis' golden mane was not to be disdained. She courted him assiduously all through supper and he made contemptuously free response. The honey-colored hair, the sweet-scented body intrigued him very little. He knew that he could have her with a single gesture from his famous fingers. He had met her kind before, a little less beautiful perhaps, certainly more blatant, but equally voracious of sensation. A liaison with Alexis Petrovskey or any other famous artist would furnish welcome tidbit for dainty jaws. A hectic spot upon each cheek, he ate his supper in a sort of petrified excitement, scarcely aware of the audacious words his lips were uttering; absolutely ignorant of the food he put between them. He drank the sparkling wine feverishly. It spread through his body and was absorbed like spilled ink upon a blotter. Beyond the saturnine profile of the authoress, he occasionally caught Anne's eyes fixed upon him from a neighboring table. Beneath their serene surface he glimpsed a troubled question. Was she, too, suffering? Did she sense his pain? His unutterable, stupefying torture? Or did she merely find him volatile and unstable? Well, she would understand it all soon enough, God knows! What a nightmare! Supper over, the crowd overflowed into the living room. Seated at the piano, Del Re was preparing to sing. Her hand upon his arm, his beautiful neighbor lured Alexis into a remote window-seat. "Now, we can listen in comfort," she murmured, approaching felinely. Her bare flesh grazed his shoulder. He lighted his cigarette from hers, leaning unnecessarily close. It amused him to whet her genteel nymphomania. Del Re sang an aria from Mephisto with diabolic grandeur. Then broke into a series of Spanish folk songs. The vibrating, cello-like tones, the lilting accompaniment, were replete with magnetism and created a furore. Close upon his triumphant heels, followed Olive Fay, who executed a kicking dance to Gerald's devilishly clever improvisation. Rosy, rouged knees emerging impudently from slit draperies, she was the incarnation of Gerald's heady and insinuating jazz. There was an unsteady silence, a self-conscious, tightened silence. Lips parted feverishly, the wine-warmed crowd was momentarily uneasy. Then it relaxed into uproarious applause. Olive was lost amongst a bevy of shirt-fronts as indispensable to her being as lipstick or rouge, and about as impersonal. Later, they called upon Alexis. He came out from his corner smiling and unexpectedly amiable. To Anne's surprise, he consented to contribute to the entertainment. "But you haven't your violin!" "I don't need it," he replied, laughing lightly. "I intend to be low-brow."