Immediately there was a murmur of voices, a quick outstretching of hands, and a sudden careful pinning on to waists, while each glance affected unconsciousness of what it had detected. Doré did not imitate the others. Her eye, too, had immediately caught the disclosed corner. She contrived, while folding her gloves, to turn the bouquet slightly, so that no trace of what it contained showed. Then, when the opportunity came, she examined the faces of the men. So quickly had the flowers been transferred to the bodices that the male portion remained in ignorance. Massingale was too close to her to be sure of. Had his quick eye detected what the others had missed? To refuse the bouquet meant to bring down on her head a torrent of explanations; ignorance were better. At this moment there was a hollow pause. The caviar had just been served, and the chorus girls, watching for a precedent, were in a quandary between a fork which inclined to a knife, and a fork that was a tortured spoon. But Georgie Gwynne, too long repressed, exclaimed: "Oh, hell! Buzzy, tell us the club." This remark, and the roar with which is was greeted, dispelled at once the gloom that had settled about the Royal Observer. The chorus girls, unbending, began to talk American--all at once, chattering, gesturing. Doré profited by the moment to affix the bouquet among the orchids she already wore. The success of Georgie Gwynne's ice-breaking was such that the Comte de Joncy, charmed by such naturalness, wished to invite her to his side; but, amid protests, it was decided, on a happy motion of Busby's, that the guests should rotate after each course. "Sorry it's so," said Massingale, turning; "I shall lose you!" "Oh, now you know I'm a counterfeit," Dodo said maliciously, "I shall spoil your fun. Never mind; I promise to go early!" "Who are you?" he said, by way of answer. "Trixie Tennyson!" "I've half a mind to denounce you!" "Oh, Your Honor, you wouldn't do that!" "So you won't tell me who you are?" "It'll be so much more fun for you to find out!" She listened to him with her head set a little to one side. She rarely gave the full of her face, keeping always about her a subtle touch of evasion. "I know her kind well," he had said to himself. But he continued to watch her intently, interested in that innate sense of the shades of coquetry she displayed in the lingering slanted glances, and the eerie smile which gathered from the malicious corners of her eyes, slipping down the curved cheek to play a moment about her lips. "Why did you come?" he said, wishing that she would turn toward him. "Curiosity!" "Precipices?" She turned to him, genuine surprise in the blue clouded eyes, her rosy lips parted in amazement. "How did you know?" "It wasn't difficult!" "You're uncanny!" [Illustration: The chorus girls began to talk]