Cassy laughed. She had had a glass of champagne. She had too, what is far headier, the wine of youth. "Well, I didn't see any showmen tumbling over each other. Mr. Lennox was there. He asked after you, and introduced a man who had us out to supper. It was very good. I did so wish for you, poor dear." "What man? What is his name?" "Paliser, I think. Something of the kind. Ma Tamby told me." "Not old M. P.?" "Perhaps, I don't know. He has hair like a looking-glass. He did not seem old; he seemed very impudent. Ma Tamby says he's rich as all outdoors." "That's the son then. Don't have anything to do with him. They're a bad lot." "As if I cared! Ma Tamby said he could get me an engagement." "Ha! In vaudeville with acrobats and funny men and little suppers to follow." "Why not big ones?" "Big what?" "Big goose!" replied Cassy, who removed her gloves, took off her hat, ran a pin through it, put it down. Her father stared. Behind the girl stood a blonde brute whom the supper had evoked. He wore a scowl and a bloody apron. In his hand was a bill. Behind him was the baker, the candlestickmaker. Behind these was the agent, punctual and pertinacious, who had come for the rent. Though but visions, they were real. Moreover, though they evaporated at once, solidly they would return. He had been staring at her, and through her, at them. In staring his eyes filled. Immediately they leaked. Cassy bit her lip. The tumbril and the guillotine would not have made her weep. Dry-eyed she would have gone from one to the other. Besides, what on earth was he wowing about? But immediately it occurred to her that he might be experiencing one of the attacks to which he was subject. She leaned over him. "You poor dear, is it your heart?" He brushed his eyes. Dimly they lighted. With artistic mobility his face creased in a smile. "No, farther down." Cassy moved back. "What in the world----" But now his face clouded again. "I am glad you had supper. To-morrow we'll starve." The exaggeration annoyed her, she exclaimed at it and then stopped short. Already she had envisaged the situation. But it was idle, she thought, to excite him additionally. "Well?" he almost whinnied. But as he would have to know, she out with it. "There's the portrait, there's the violin. Either would tide us over." In speaking she had approached him again. He shoved her aside. With a jerk he got to his feet, struck an attitude, tapped himself on the breast. "I, Marquis de Casa-Evora, sell my father's picture! I, Angelo Cara, sell my violin! And you, my daughter, suggest such a thing! But are you my daughter? Are you--oh!" It trailed away. The noble anger, real or assumed, fell from him. No longer the outraged father, he was but a human being in pain. Cassy hurried to the mantel where, in provision of these attacks, were glass tubes with amyl in them. She took and broke one and had him inhale it.