"Miss Ramsey brought hers with her," replied Mariana, with a smile. "It worries her dreadfully. It is just like a ball on the leg of a convict. She has to drag it wherever she goes, and it makes her awfully tired sometimes."
"A good Bohemian conscience is the only variety worth possessing," observed Mr. Nevins. "It changes color with every change of scene and revolves upon an axis. Hurrah for Bohemia!"
"Hear! hear!" cried Mariana, gayly. She lifted a glass of sherry, and, lighting a cigarette, sprang upon the music-stool. Mr. Ponsonby drew up a chair and seated himself at the piano, and, blowing a cloud of smoke about her head, Mariana sang a rollicking song of the street.
As she finished, the door opened and Algarcife stood upon the threshold. For a moment he gazed at the scene—at Mariana poised upon the music-stool with upraised arms, her hat hanging by an elastic from her shoulder, her head circled by wreaths of cigarette smoke, her eyes reckless. His look was expressive of absolute amazement. Innocent as the scene was in reality, to him it seemed an orgy of abandon, and there was not a man in the room who would not have understood Mariana at that moment better than he did.
"I beg your pardon, Nevins," he said, abruptly. "No, I won't come in." And the door closed.
But Mariana had seen his face, and, with a flutter of impulse and a precipitate rush, she was after him.
"Mr. Algarcife!" Her voice broke.
He turned and faced her.
"What is it?"
"You—you looked so shocked!" she cried.