"Just the face," as Golightly murmured to Elfrida, "to run the _Boudoir_." She seemed to know everybody, bowed right and left with varying degrees of cordiality, and said sharply, "No shop to-night!" to a thin young woman in a high black silk, who came up to her exclaiming, "Oh, Mrs.Morrow, that function at Sandringham has been postponed." Presently Mrs.Morrow's royal progress was interrupted by a gentleman who wished to present Signer Georgiadi, "the star of the evening," Golightly said hurriedly to Elfrida.

Mrs.Morrow was very gracious, but the little fat Italian with the long hair and the drooping eyelids was atrociously embarrassed to respond to her compliments in English.

He struggled so violently that Mrs.Morrow began to smile with a compassionate patronage which turned him a distressing terra-cotta.

Elfrida looked on for a few minutes, and then, as one of the group, she said quietly in French, "And Italian opera in England, how do you find it, Signor ?" The Italian thanked her with every feature of his expressive countenance, and burst with polite enthusiasm into his opinion of the Albert Hall concerts.

When he discovered Elfrida to be an American, and therefore not specially susceptible to praise of English classical interpretations, he allowed himself to become critical, and their talk increased in liveliness and amiability.
Mrs.Morrow listened with an appreciative air for a few minutes, playing with her fan; then she turned to Mr.
Ticke.
"Golightly," she said acidly, "I am dying of thirst You shall take me to the refreshment table." So the star of the evening was abandoned to Elfrida, and finding in her a refuge from the dreadful English tongue, he clung to her.