This Sanguinetti dinner party of Sydney Masters's differed but slightly, after all, from other slumming parties in the hostelry of touch-and-go familiarities. Amused outsiders, they watched the growth of swift flirtations, passed comments on the overdressed women, joined in the latest Orpheum songs which started when the cheap wine made music in the throat, chucked quarters into the banjoes of the two negro minstrels who came in at eight o'clock to stimulate merriment. Bertram, in his position as jester to King Masters, went a little further than the others. It was he who bought out the stock of a small Italian flower-vendor, that he might present a bouquet "to every lady in the place." His attention brought from the ladies varying degrees of gratitude, and from their escorts degrees of resentment which varied still more. Running out of flowers before he had gone clear around the room, he built up on toothpicks bouquets of celery and radishes, which he fastened to the corks of empty claret bottles and gave, with elaborate presentation speeches, to the merrier and prettier of the neglected ladies. From this expedition, he returned leading a little, sad man, who had the look of a boy grown old by troubles. A bleached-blonde woman followed them half-way across, but centre room she turned back with a stamp of her foot and a flourish of her shoulders. "Ladies and gentlemen," Bertram announced, "I desire the privilege of introducing Teddy Murphy, California's premier jockey, lately set down on an outrageously false charge of pulling a horse. He is here, ladies and gentlemen, to tell you his troubles!" A moment of silent embarrassment on both sides. "Here--take my chair, Mr. Murphy!" spoke Kate from the foot of the table. The next table, set _a deux_, had just become vacant. Kate slipped into its nearest chair. Bertram's seat was back by the wall; to reach it, he must step over feet and so interrupt Mr. Murphy's tale of wrong. Nothing was more natural than that he should take the seat opposite Kate. And instantly--he having heard the story already--Bertram lost interest. "Would you mind getting my muff?" asked Kate. "I think my handkerchief is in it." As Bertram handed over the muff, she was smiling up at him. She did not look down until she had taken out her handkerchief, flirted out its folds. Then a little, disconcerted "oh!" escaped her. "What is it?" Kate was shaking out her skirt, was glancing rapidly to right and left. "Goodness!" she cried. "What's the matter?" "A letter. Have you seen it?" Bertram looked under the table. There it lay, by his chair. He picked it up and passed it over. "Oh!" she cried again, this time in a tone balanced between relief and embarrassment. She tucked it back into her muff, and her eyes avoided his. He noted all this pantomime, and he was about to speak, when Mrs. Masters touched Kate on the shoulder. "My dear, you're missing this!" she whispered.