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