Very soon people began to whisper round her. Artists find it very difficult to listen to other artists on these occasions. In a minute or two almost everybody was speaking with an air of mystery. Miss Schley put her lips to Leo Ulford’s ear. Evidently she had a great deal to say to him. He began to pout his lips in smiles. They both looked across at Lord Holme. Then Miss Schley went on murmuring words into Leo’s ear and Leo began to shake with silent laughter. Lord Holme clenched his hands at his sides. The French actor, still watching him closely, put up a fat forefinger and meditatively traced the outline of his own profile, pushing out his large flexible lips when the finger was drawing near to them. The whole room was full of the tickling noise of half-whispered conversation. Presently the music stopped. Instantly the tickling noise stopped too. There was languid applause--the applause of smart people on a summer afternoon--from beyond the screen. Then the grave girl reappeared, looking graver and hot. Those who had been busily talking while she was playing gathered round her to express their delight in her kind accompaniment. The pianist hurried up to a stout man with a low, turned-down collar and a white satin tie, whose double chin, and general air of rather fatuous prosperity, proclaimed him the possessor of a tenor voice, and Miss Schley walked quietly, but with determination, up to where Lady Holme was sitting and took a seat beside her. “Glad to meet you again,” she drawled. She called Leo Ulford with a sharp nod. He hesitated, and began to look supremely uncomfortable, twisting the bouquet of carnations round and round in nervous hands. “I’ve been simply expiring all season to hear you sing,” Miss Schley continued. “How sweet of you!” “That is so. Mr. Ulford, please bring my flowers.” Leo had no alternative but to obey. He came slowly towards the sofa, while the tenor and the pianist vanished behind the screen. That he was sufficiently sensitive to be conscious of the awkwardness of the situation Miss Schley had pleasantly contrived was very apparent. He glowered upon Lady Holme, forcing his boyish face to assume a coarsely-determined and indifferent expression. But somehow the body, which she knew her husband had thrashed, looked all the time as if it were being thrashed again. The voice of the hidden tenor rose in “_Celeste Aida!_” and Lady Holme listened with an air of definite attention, taking no notice of Leo. The music gave her a perfect excuse for ignoring him. But Miss Schley did not intend to be interfered with by anything so easily trampled upon as an art. Speaking in her most clear and choir-boyish tones, she said to Leo Ulford: “Sit down, Mr. Ulford. You fidget me standing.” Then turning again to Lady Holme she continued: