The other smiled, he was not vexed; Gobion knew his man. They drove swiftly to the Palace through the lighted streets, talking a little on the way. When they went into the stalls the hysterio-comic of the hour was leaping round the stage in frenzied pirouettes between the verses of her song.
The suggestive music of the dance pulsed through the audience, and when the time sank into the rhythm of the verse, they sat back in their seats with expectant eyes, and a little sigh of delight and anticipation.
Miss Mace, in her song "It's a Family Characteristic," was the talk of London. The risquè nature of the words, her wonderful art in singing them, her naughty eyes, the twitching of her somewhat large mouth—all the lewd papers of the baser sort yelled over her in ecstasy every Wednesday morning.
"I wonder what they pay her a week," said Mr. Jones.
Gobion hadn't an idea, but he said "sixty pounds" confidently.
"Really! She certainly is very clever."
"The best thing I find about her is that she is in wonderful sympathy with her audience, especially too when she is drunk—much funnier then."
"Imagine how often the average faddist would invoke the Deity during her turn," said the stranger something sententiously.
"His deity, you mean," answered Gobion. "The average man of the Echo-reading type thinks God is a policeman in the service of the Purity party."
"You coruscate; let us go to the American bar."