From the corner nearest the entrance a young woman advanced to meet them. She was clad in flowing lines of opalescent green, and her black hair was banded low across the forehead with a narrow line of emerald. “You wish to see raiment?” was her greeting. Mary felt rather at a loss amidst these ultra-aestheticisms, but Stefan promptly asked to see Miss Berber. “Madame rarely sees new clients in the morning.” The green damsel was pessimistic. Mary felt secretly amused at the ostentatious phraseology. “Tell her we are friends of Mrs. Theodore Elliot's,” replied Stefan, with his most brilliant and ingratiating smile. The damsel brightened somewhat. “If I may have your name I will see what can be done,” she offered, extending a small vermilion tray. Stefan produced a card and the damsel floated with it toward the distant exit. Her footsteps were silent on the dead tiling, and there was no sound from the door beyond the screen. “Isn't this a lark? Let's sit down,” Stefan exclaimed, leading the way to a couch. “It's rather absurd, don't you think?” smiled Mary. “No doubt, but amusing enough for mere mortals,” he shrugged, a scarcely perceptible snub in his tone. Mary was silent. They waited for several minutes. At last instinct rather than hearing made them turn to see a figure advancing down the room. Both instantly recognized the celebrated Miss Berber. A small, slim woman, obviously light-boned and supple, she seemed to move forward like a ripple. Her naturally pale face, with its curved scarlet lips and slanting eyes, was set on a long neck, and round her small head a heavy swathe of black hair was held by huge scarlet pins. Her dress, cut in a narrow V at the neck, was all of semi-transparent reds, the brilliant happy reds of the Chinese. In fact, but for her head, she would have been only half visible as she advanced against the background of the screen. Mary's impression of her was blurred, but Stefan, whose artist's eye observed everything, noticed that her narrow feet were encased in heelless satin shoes which followed the natural shape of the feet like gloves. “Mr. and Mrs. Byrd! How do you do?” she murmured, and her voice was light-breathed, a mere memory of sound. It suggested that she customarily mislaid it, and recaptured only an echo. “Pull that other couch a little nearer, please,” she waved to Stefan, appropriating the one from which they had just risen. Upon this she stretched her full length, propping the cushions comfortably under her shoulders. “Do you smoke?” she breathed, and stretching an arm produced from a hidden drawer in the table at her elbow cigarettes in a box of black lacquer, and matches in one of red. Mary declined, but Stefan immediately lighted a cigarette for himself and held a match for Miss Berber. Mary and he settled themselves on the couch which he drew up, and which slipped readily over the tiles.