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There is something so futile and unconvincing about an attempted description of an intangible thing. Some call it personality; some call it magnetism; some a rhythm sense; and some, genius. It’s all these things, and none of them. Whatever it is, she had it. And whatever it is, Sid Hahn has never failed to recognize it.

So now he said, quietly, “She’s got it.”

“You bet she’s got it!” from Wallie. “She’s got more than Renee Paterne ever had. A year of training and some clothes–“

“You don’t need to tell me. I’m in the theatrical business, myself.”

“I’m sorry,” stiffly.

But Hahn, too, was sorry immediately. “You know how I am, Wallie. I like to run a thing off by myself. What do you know about her? Find out anything?”

“Well, a little. She doesn’t seem to have any people. And she’s decent. Kind of a fierce kid, I guess, and fights when offended. They say she’s Polish, not Hungarian. Her mother was a peasant. Her father–nobody knows. I had a dickens of a time finding out anything. The most terrible language in the world–Hungarian. They’ll stick a b next to a k and follow it up with a z and put an accent mark over the whole business and call it a word. Last night I followed her home. And guess what!”

“What?” said Hahn, obligingly.

“On her way she had to cross the big square–the one they call Gisela Ter, with all the shops around it. Well, when she came to Gerbeaud’s–“

“What’s Gerbeaud’s?”

“That’s the famous tea room and pastry shop where all the swells go and guzzle tea with rum in it and eat cakes–and say! It isn’t like our pastry that tastes like sawdust covered with shaving soap. Marvellous stuff, this is!”

After all, he was barely twenty-four. So Hahn said, good-naturedly, “All right, all right. We’ll go there this afternoon and eat an acre of it. Go on. When she came to Gerbeaud’s…?”

“Well, when she came to Gerbeaud’s she stopped and stood there, outside. There was a strip of red carpet from the door to the street. You know–the kind they have at home when there’s a wedding on Fifth Avenue. There she stood at the edge of the carpet, waiting, her face, framed in that funny little black shawl, turned toward the window, and the tail of the little shawl kind of waggling in the wind. It was cold and nippy. I waited, too. Finally I sort of strolled over to her–I knew she couldn’t any more than knock me down–and said, kind of casual, ‘What’s doing?’ She looked up at me, like a kid, in that funny shawl. She knew I was an Englees, right away. I guess I must have a fine, open countenance. And I had motioned toward the red carpet, and the crowded windows. Anyway, she opens up with a regular burst of fireworks Hungarian, in that deep voice of hers. Not only that, she acted it out. In two seconds she had on an imaginary coronet and a court train. And haughty! Gosh! I was sort of stumped, but I said, ‘You don’t say!’ and waited some more. And then they flung open the door of the tea shop thing. At the same moment up dashed an equipage–you couldn’t possibly call it anything less–with flunkeys all over the outside, like trained monkeys. The people inside the shop stood up, with their mouths full of cake, and out came an old frump with a terrible hat and a fringe. And it was the Archduchess, and her name is Josefa.”

“Your story interests me strangely, boy,” Hahn said, grinning, “but I don’t quite make you. Do archduchesses go to tea rooms for tea? And what’s that got to do with our gifted little hod carrier?”

“This duchess does. Believe me, those tarts are good enough for the Queen of Hearts, let alone a duchess, no matter how arch. But the plot of the piece is this. The duchess person goes to Gerbeaud’s about twice a week. And they always spread a red carpet for her. And Mizzi always manages to cut away in time to stand there in front of Gerbeaud’s and see her come out. She’s a gorgeous mimic, that little kid. And though I couldn’t understand a word she said I managed to get out of it just this: That some day they’re going to spread a red carpet for Mizzi and she’s going to walk down it in glory. If you’d seen her face when she said it, S.H., you wouldn’t laugh.”