"Look here, I'll give you ten guineas for a column in _The Spy_, showing up Heath and _The Pilgrim_. You needn't give names. Just make it racy, and cut into the old elephant. You'll excuse my talkin' shop in my own house, but I should like to have you on _The Spy_ very much." Gobion was flattered. _The Spy_ was disreputable, but big and important. He agreed to do an article for the next issue, and as the arrangement was concluded, the butler came in to say that the ladies were ready to start. Bidding his host good-night, he went up to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Picton and her sister Veda Leuilette were waiting. They drove to the "Criterion," and the air of the carriage was heavy with the scent of flowers and a subtle odour of white lilac, and the _frou-frou_ of skirts seemed to accentuate the perfume. They drove up to the theatre, the footman springing down to open the door, and Gobion helped the ladies out. As they went into the _foyer_ he noticed Wild and Blanche Huntley going into the stalls. It was very pleasant to take care of two strikingly pretty women, and Gobion was conscious of a wish that some of his Oxford friends, who had imagined that his flight to London practically meant starvation, could see him now. The house was full of celebrities. There were warm scents in the air, and from their box they could see vaguely as through a mist a parterre of bright colours, the swirl of a fan, the gleaming of white arms, and the occasional sharp scintillation from a diamond ring or bracelet, while beyond, the space under the circle was crowded with rows of white faces framed in black. Mrs. Picton was dressed in pale blue _crêpe-de-chine_, looking very lovely, and her violet eyes flashed a dangerous fascination while Gobion and she consulted the programme. Soon after their entrance the band came in, and began to play a lazy, swinging waltz, which seemed to Gobion to harmonize strangely with the apricot light of the theatre. The whole scene struck an unreal and exotic note; he felt a strange deadening of thought, a dreamy sensuousness more physical than mental, and every time Mrs. Picton leant back to make some remark, with a little flash of white teeth framed in wine-red lips, her looks stung his blood. One of her hands lay on the cushion of the box, white and soft, with rosy filbert nails. "How Botticelli would have loved to paint your hands," he said, speaking a little thickly. "A portrait is always so unsatisfactory, don't you think?" "Perhaps; a looking-glass is a better artist than Herkomer." "Now you're going to be clever! Look at Mrs. Wrampling in the stalls--fancy showing so soon after the divorce! Isn't she a perfect poem, though?" "One that has been through several editions." "She's well made up, but she's put on a little too much colour." "Oh, she's not as ugly as she's painted." "Now you are much too nice a boy to be cynical." "The cynic only sees things as they really are."