But on her expressive mouth the word "us" might almost have meant "me," and he paid her the easy compliment which came naturally to him, while she looked at him out of lazy and very lovely eyes as green as beryls.

"_Tiche_," she murmured, smiling, "_ce n'est pas moi l'etat, monsieur_." And laughed while her indolent glance slanted sideways on Vanya, and lingered there as though in leisurely but amiable appraisal.

The girl was evidently very young, but there seemed to be an indefinable something about her that hinted of experience beyond her years.

Palla had been looking at her--from Shotwell to her--and Marya's sixth sense was already aware of it and asking why.

For between two females of the human species the constant occult interplay is like steady lighting. With invisible antennae they touch one another incessantly, delicately exploring inside that grosser aura which is all that the male perceives.

And finally Marya looked back at Palla.

"May Mr. Tchernov play for us?" asked Palla, smiling, as though some vague authority in the matter were vested in this young girl with the tiger-hair.

Her eyes closed indolently, and opened again as though digesting the subtlety: then, disdainfully accepting the a.s.sumption: "Oh, Vanya,"

she called out carelessly, "play a little for us."

The handsome youth bowed in his absent, courteous way. There was about him a simplicity entirely winning as he seated himself at the piano.

But his playing revealed a maturity and n.o.bility of mind scarcely expected of such gentleness and youth.

Never had Palla heard Beethoven until that moment.

He did not drift. There was no caprice to offend when he turned with courtly logic from one great master to another.

Only when Estridge asked for something "typically Russian" did the charming dignity of the sequence break. Vanya laughed and looked at Marya Lanois:

"That means you must sing," he said.

She sang, resting where she was among the silken cushions;--the song, one of those epics of ancient Moscow, lauded Ivan IV. and the taking of Kazan.

The music was bizarre; the girl's voice bewitching; and though the song was of the _Beliny_, it had been made into brief couplets, and it ended very quickly.

Laughing at the applause, she sang a song of the _Skomorokhi_; then a cradle song, infinitely tender and strange, built upon the Chinese scale; and another--a Cossack song--built, also, upon the pentatonic scale.

Discussions intruded then; the diversion ended the music.

Palla presently rose, spoke to Vanya and Estridge, and came over to where Jim Shotwell sat beside Marya.

Interrupted, they both looked up, and Jim rose as Estridge also presented himself to Marya.

Palla said: "If you will take me out, Jim, we can show everybody the way." And to Marya: "Just a little supper, you know--but the dining room is below."

Her pretty drawing-room was only partly furnished--an expensive but genuine set of old Aubusson being her limit for the time.

But beyond, in the rear, the little gla.s.s doors opened on a charming dining-room, the old Georgian mahogany of which was faded to a golden hue. Curtains, too, were golden shot with palest mauve; and two Imperial Chinese panels of ancient silk, miraculously embroidered and set with rainbow Ho-ho birds, were the only hangings on the walls. And they seemed to illuminate the room like sunshine.

Shotwell, who knew nothing about such things but envisaged them with reverence, seated Palla and presently took his place beside her.

His neighbour on his left was Marya, again--an arrangement which Palla might have altered had it occurred to her upstairs.

Estridge, very animated, and apparently happy, recalled to Palla their last dinner together, and their dance.

Palla laughed: "You said I drank too much champagne, John Estridge! Do you remember?"

"You bet I do. You had a cunning little bunn, Palla----"

"I did not! I merely asked you and Mr. Brisson what it felt like to be intoxicated."

"You did your best to be a sport," he insisted, "but you almost pa.s.sed away over your first cigarette!"

"Darling!" cried Ilse, "don't let them tease you!"

Palla, rather pink, laughingly denied any aspirations toward sportdom; and she presently ventured a glance at Shotwell, to see how he took all this.

But already Marya had engaged him in half smiling, low-voiced conversation; and Palla looked at her golden-green eyes and warm, rich colouring, cooled by a skin of snow. Tiger-golden, the _rousse_ ensemble; the supple movement of limb and body fascinated her; but most of all the lovely, slanting eyes with their glint of beryl amid melting gold.

Estridge spoke to Marya; as the girl turned slightly, Palla said to Shotwell:

"Do you find them interesting--my guests?"

He turned instantly to her, but it seemed to her as though there were a slight haze in his eyes--a fixedness--which cleared, however, as he spoke.

"They are delightful--all of them," he said. "Your blond G.o.ddess yonder is rather overpowering, but beautiful to gaze upon."

"And Vanya?"

"Charming; astonishing."

"Lovable," she said.

"He seems so."

"And--Marya?"

"Rather bewildering," he replied. "Fascinating, I should say. Is she very learned?"

"I don't know."

"She's been in the universities."

"Yes.... I don't know how learned she is."

"She is very young," he remarked.

It was on the tip of Palla's tongue to say something; and she remained silent--lest this man misinterpret her motive--and, perhaps, lest her own conscience misinterpret it, too.

Ilse said it to Estridge, however, frankly insouciant: