"What famous picture?" asked Dora.
"Why, the one that all London is talking of—the one I so much wanted to buy six months ago."
"You remember," said Lorimer, "thirty-six by fifty" ...
"Oh, of course. You can see it in the adjoining room, at the end of the small drawing-room."
"Thanks!"
And he set off in the direction indicated.
"Always that picture," said Dora to Lorimer; "my head is dazed; why do we not go to supper and put an end to this? Holloa! What is that frantic applause for?... Listen, they are going on with it, they are encoring something. What can it be all about?"
Lorimer pressed through the crowd a little, and then came back to Dora.
"You may count upon something spicy," said he; "it is Mimi Latouche, once the darling of Paris, now all the rage in London. Did you ask her here to-night?"
"I asked her—that is to say, the impresario who has charge of my programme sent her."