“Oh, I have nothing—­nothing but admiration,” he said smiling.

She shook her head.

“Ca ne va pas.  The chief guest.  Ah, no!  That is not kind.  A birthday—­c’est une chose bien serieuse, voyons.  Who knows?  Per’aps you never ’ave another chance—­and then you ’ave remorse—­’orrible, terrible remorse.  Or do you never ’ave remorse either, Monsieur le docteur?”

“No—­not yet.”

“You must not run ze risk, then.”

He thought savagely.

“If I had a diamond stud she would make me give it her.”

He took a shilling from his pocket and laid it gravely in the midst of her trophies.

“Is that enough?”

And then before he could draw back she had kissed him between the eyes.

“Quite, then.  I keep it for a mascot, and you will remember to-morrow morning, when you are ver’ grave and important with some poor frightened patient, that Gyp Labelle kiss you last night, and that you are not different from ze others, after all.  And I will take my shilling from under my pillow, and say:  ’Poor Gyp, that’s what you’re worth, my friend!’”

“He doesn’t know you yet.”

Robert Stonehouse looked up sharply.  The interruption had started a new train of thought.  Beyond the flushed face of the man opposite him, he could see the empty stalls, row after row of gaunt-ribbed and featureless spectators, watching him.  The play had become a nightmare farce in which he had chosen a ludicrous, impossible part.  But he had to go on now.

“Except for Cosgrave there, I’ve known Mademoiselle Labelle longer than any of you.  I’ve known her ever since I was a boy.”

He felt rather than saw their expressions change.  She too stared with an arrested interest, but he looked away from her to Cosgrave, smiling ironically.  If it humiliated her and made her ridiculous too—­well, that was what he wanted.  He wanted to pay her back—­most of all for the excitement boiling in him—­the sense of having been toppled out of his serenity into a torrent of noise and colour by that audacious touch of her lips upon his face.  And there was Cosgrave—­and then again some older score to be paid off—­something far off and indistinct that would presently come clear.

“Don’t you remember, Rufus?”

“Rather.  But I know you a minute longer, Mademoiselle.  I saw you before he did.”

“That was because Mademoiselle Moretti rode first.”

“Ah—­the Circus!” She threw her head back, drawing a deep breath through her nostrils as though she savoured some long-lost perfume blown in upon her by a sudden wind.  “Now I remember too.  Ze good Moretti.  She ride old Arabesque.  ’E ’ave white spots all over ’im—­on ’is chest and what you call ’is paws, and every evening she ’ave to paint ’im like she paint ’er face.  Madame Moretti—­that was a good sort—­bonne enfant—­what