Maddy's face almost contorted as she saw me still in my tattered maid's dress. Mandy pushed a tray of grapes into my hand in resignation and urged, "Get in there!"

With that she opened the door to the banqueting-room, and I felt a sharp shove in my back. The door closed noiselessly. I stepped into the dimly lighted, perfumed hall. It was a small banqueting hall, in the centre of which were draped curtains of gauze, behind which topless men and women were fondling each other's bodies to the soft music of ambiguous music. Accustomed by this time to Madeleine's habitual debauchery, I quietly laid the grapes on the table...