the restaurant paused with food halfway to their lips. They turned to see the artist, carefully, so that no chair would scrape. The waiters stopped with trays in their hands. Wan Ti stopped a newly arriving couple, his fingers at his lips.

In the midst of the applause that roared through the room when Cornel had finished, a waiter tapped his shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir," he said. "Miss Meta Erosine asks that you join her at her table."

Rising and bowing to his audience, Cornel followed the man to a table at the rear of the room, where a woman sat with her escort.

Meta Erosine's pale, heart-shaped face, with its mop of short black hair and luminous black eyes, was widely known on Earth, but Cornel had never been to Earth before. Her vibrant beauty blazed on a victim unprepared for it.

She was clad in the cretan-can-can style just then becoming popular, with breasts exposed over a tight bodice and a short, ruffled skirt gathered in front to reveal the knees. She smoked a long-stemmed, tiny-bowled pipe, studded with jewels.

Beside her sat a sleek, mustached young man in ruffled lavender shirt and pink tights, his fingers covered with rings.

"Sit down and eat with me, musician," invited Meta. Somewhat dubiously, Cornel took a seat at her right, across the table from the beruffled escort.

"Meta, I wish you wouldn't demean yourself by taking up with tramps and guttersnipes," objected her companion, wrinkling his nose.

"Leave me, Passo," she ordered, waving an imperious hand. "Why should I sup with painted popinjays when I can adore genius?"

Passo flushed and his mouth fell open. But he arose and slunk quietly away.

"Now, musician," said Meta, leaning over the table so that her powdered breasts brushed the glassware, "tell me, what was that last number you played?"

"One of my own compositions," he said diffidently. The odor of food was too much for him, and he leaned across the table to appropriate Passo's untouched salad. "Its name is Wind in the Canals."

"It should be Le Vent dans les Canals," she said. "You should title your compositions in French—they will be more fashionable."

"I don't know 

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