She crumpled the paper in her hand. There was a knock at the door; Fossy poked his head in. He had risen in the world of Halls, even as Nelly O'Neill.
"Might I present two friends of mine? They want so much to know you."
"You know I never see anybody, and that I have to hurry off."
"Then, I was to give you this bouquet."
He handed in a costly floral mass. Amid it lay a card, "Colonel Doherty." She crumpled his letter more viciously.
"Tell them I can give them ten minutes only. Oh, Fossy, it's an amusing Show, isn't it?"
"It was a rattling good show," said Fossy, half puzzled. "Come in, boys."
Entered the Anglo-Indian twain with shining faces and shirt-fronts, cheroots politely lowered.
"Oh, smoke away, gentlemen," cried Nelly O'Neill, facing them in all the dazzle of her flesh and the crudity of her stage-paint, and her over-lustrous eyes, "don't mind me. Which of you is the Colonel?"
The stout, sallow gentleman jocosely pushed his tall flaxen-haired companion forward. "Oh, I knew the Major was out of it," he grinned.