It was Aglipogue who looked at Gloria now as if he expected her to send Ruth away, but she said nothing, sitting quite still with her long hands folded in her lap, a most uncharacteristic pose, and a faint smile on her lips. She seemed to have forgotten both of them. It seemed incredible that less than five minutes before Ruth had seen her bend her head to meet the lips of the fat singer—incredible and horrible. “Yes, I’m tired—of singing,” said Aglipogue after a pause. He rose and lifted one of Gloria’s lovely hands and kissed it. Simultaneously George appeared at the door with his hat and stick. It seemed to Ruth that under his air of great deference and humility George was sneering at the Prince. Gloria, seemingly only half roused from her trance or reverie, rose also in farewell and seemed to struggle to concentrate on her departing guest. “Tomorrow,” he said, bending again over her hand. “Yes, tomorrow.” He went out without again speaking to Ruth, who waited breathless until she heard the closing of the outer door. Gloria watched him disappear, and then lifted her arms high above her head, stretching her superb body up to its full length like a great Persian cat just waking from a nap. “What are you doing up at this hour, Ruth?” She spoke as if seeing Ruth for the first time. “I went to the theatre with Terry, you know, and then we went to supper afterward and I came in fifteen minutes ago. I’m not a bit tired.” “I am, horribly, of everything.” “It’s only Prince Aglipogue who’s been boring you. No wonder you’re tired of him. If he’d only sing behind a curtain so that one didn’t have to look at him, he would be quite lovely,” said Ruth. She spoke thus with the intention of making Gloria tell what she really thought of the Prince. Gloria sank back on her chair by the piano and rested her chin on her folded hands, her elbows on her knees. Unlike most large women she seemed able to assume any attitude she chose without appearing ungraceful. “You don’t like Aggie, do you?” She was looking at Ruth now with something of her normal expression in her eyes. “I don’t exactly dislike him,” said Ruth. “He’s all right as a singer or a pianist or a painter, but as a man he is singularly uninteresting, isn’t he?” “He is horribly stupid—I—” Suddenly her expression changed and she was on her feet again, walking restlessly up and down the room: “I’m going to marry him; he’s going to South America on a concert tour and I’ll go with him—I’m so tired of everything; I want to get away.”