V
ONE night in the early winter a party of people started out, after dining at the Ransome's flat, on a slumming expedition. The affair had been arranged for Alice Blackley's benefit; Alice was more eager than ever to see life, and she thought she would like to see it in undress. She had confided to Teresa lately that she was tired of artists (except Basil, of course), and that she did not believe they were any more interesting, when you knew them, than other people. However, Erhart was of the present party, which contained besides only Basil and Teresa, for Erhart was anxious to please Mrs. Blackley, having an eye always to the commercial side of his profession; and Basil had amiably brought the two together.
It was late when they started, the two women in quiet, dark dresses, appropriate for a pure tour of inspection. They went first into the Tenderloin, to two or three music-halls, and a place where coffee and cigarettes and Turkish furnishings competed with the inevitable whisky.
The music-halls were noisy, glaring with electric light, and filled with a crowd of men and girls, sitting or moving about the little tables,
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