“You must think I’m very rude,” her guest ventured.

“Nothing of the sort.  I know just how you feel.”  Miss Demorest’s smile was a trifle strained.  “Only—­I’m awfully lonesome, and—­ I’ll take care that nobody sees us.”

“Now I know I’ve been nasty.”  Lorelei felt her embarrassment growing, for this woman differed entirely from what she had expected.  Underneath the dancer’s extravagant theatricalism she appeared natural and unaffected.  Adoree changed the current of the conversation by saying: 

“I hope those bloodhounds get to fighting.”

“Don’t you like them?”

“Hate ’em!  I’d use ’em to scrub the windshield if I had my way.”

“Why—­aren’t they yours?”

“Oh, I suppose so; as much as that rubber-tired igloo is mine.  They’re my props, like the two British Peers on the box.  Gee!  I’d like to stick chewing-gum in the side-whiskers of the tall one—­ the one with the cramps in his elbows.  His name’s Riley, and he gets nine dollars a week for looking like that.  A man’s board bill isn’t particular how it’s made nowadays.”

“How—­funny!” Lorelei was eying the speaker with undisguised curiosity.  “You’re not a Frenchwoman?”

“Agnes Smith is the name.  Decent by descent, but an actress by advertising.  What’s your game?”

“Um-m—­My nose is straight; I don’t limp; so I’m an actress by force of feature.”

“Married?”

“Hardly.”

“Want to be?”

“Got to be.”

Both girls laughed unaffectedly.

“I like you,” said the dancer.  “Do you mind if I get out of this cast-iron corset and into a kimono when we get home?”

“Have you a spare one?”

“Dozens; but they’re not very clean.”

“That’s lovely.  And let’s make the tea weak.”

“Oh, I can’t drink anything strong!  I’m an awful counterfeit.”

“I’m beginning to think so.  I—­wonder if I’m dreaming.”

The girls had much in common; they chattered continuously through the short ride, and when they alighted from the taxi-cab they disputed over the right to pay for it.  When the guest was ushered into Adoree’s apartment she received another surprise, for the place was neither elaborate nor showy.  It consisted merely of two large, comfortable rooms overlooking a side-street lined with monotonous brown-stone boarding-houses which for the most part were inhabited by doctors, dressmakers, and semi-professional people.

A battered tea-kettle was set to boil over an absurd alcohol-stove that required expert assistance to maintain its equilibrium.  Adoree flung out of her finery and donned a Japanese robe, offering another to Lorelei.  A plate of limber crackers was unearthed from somewhere, also the disreputable remains of a box of marshmallows; and these latter Madamoiselle Demorest toasted on a hat-pin.

“You’re the most extraordinary person,” her guest at length remarked.  “Aren’t you going to show me your jewels or—­anything like that?”