Kitty rose on her elbow and burst out indignantly: 

“So you would really have been hood-winked except for that!  You may be sure that no woman, no intelligent woman, would have been.  Why do we ever take the trouble to look like anything for any of you?  I could count on my four fingers”—­she held them up and shook them at him—­“the men I’ve known who had the least perception of what any woman really looked like, and they were all dressmakers.  Even painters”—­glancing back in the direction of the Simon picture—­“never get more than one type through their thick heads; they try to make all women look like some wife or mistress.  You are all the same; you never see our real faces.  What you do see, is some cheap conception of prettiness you got from a coloured supplement when you were adolescents.  It’s too discouraging.  I’d rather take vows and veil my face for ever from such abominable eyes.  In the kingdom of the blind any petticoat is a queen.”  Kitty thumped the cushion with her elbow.  “Well, I can’t do anything about it.  Go on with your story.”

“Aren’t you furious, Kitty!  And I thought I was so shrewd.  I’ve quite forgotten where I was.  Anyhow, I was not the only man fooled.  After the last curtain I met Villard, the press man of that management, in the lobby, and asked him whether Kitty Ayrshire was in the house.  He said he thought so.  Stein had telephoned for a box, and said he was bringing one of the artists from the other company.  Villard had been too busy about the new production to go to the box, but he was quite sure the woman was Ayrshire, whom he had met in Paris.

“Not long after that I met Dan Leland, a classmate of mine, at the Harvard Club.  He’s a journalist, and he used to keep such eccentric hours that I had not run across him for a long time.  We got to talking about modern French music, and discovered that we both had a very lively interest in Kitty Ayrshire.

“‘Could you tell me,’ Dan asked abruptly, ’why, with pretty much all the known world to choose her friends from, this young woman should flit about with Siegmund Stein?  It prejudices people against her.  He’s a most objectionable person.’

“‘Have you,’ I asked, ‘seen her with him, yourself?’

“Yes, he had seen her driving with Stein, and some of the men on his paper had seen her dining with him at rather queer places down town.  Stein was always hanging about the Manhattan on nights when Kitty sang.  I told Dan that I suspected a masquerade.  That interested him, and he said he thought he would look into the matter.  In short, we both agreed to look into it.  Finally, we got the story, though Dan could never use it, could never even hint at it, because Stein carries heavy advertising in his paper.