The streets were full of people; and where Piccadilly opens into the market-place, groups and couples of factory girls were eagerly talking, some stretching forward in a pose that showed the nape of the neck and an ear; others, graver of face, walking straight as reeds with their hands on their hips, the palms flat, and the fingers half encircling the narrow waists.

'You must be glad to get out.' Hender said. 'To be cooped up in the way you are! I couldn't stand it.'

'Well, you see, I can enjoy myself all the more when I do get out.'

Kate would have liked to answer more tartly, but on second thoughts she decided it was not worth while. It bored her to be reminded of the humdrum life she led, and she had come to feel ashamed that she had been to the theatre only twice in her life, especially when it was mentioned in Dick's presence.

'We're too soon,' said Hender, breaking in jauntily on Kate's reflections; 'the doors aren't open yet.'

'I can see that.'

'But what are you so cross about?' asked Hender, who was not aware of what was passing in her employer's mind.

'I'm not cross. But how long shall we have to wait? Mr. Lennox said he'd meet us here, didn't he?'

'Oh, he can't be long now, for here comes Wentworth with the keys to open the doors.'

The street they were in branched to the right and left rectangularly; opposite were large flat walls, red in colour, and roofed like a barn, and before one black doorway some fifty or sixty people had collected. The manager pushed his way through the crowd, and soon after, like a snake into a hole, the line began to disappear. Hender explained that this was the way to the pit, and what Kate took for a cellar was the stage entrance. A young man with a big nose, whom she recognized as Mr. Montgomery, stared at them as he passed; then came two ladies—Miss Leslie and Miss Beaumont. Dick did not appear for some time after, but at last the big hat was seen coming along. Although, as usual, in a great hurry, he was apparently much pleased to see them, and he offered Kate his arm and conducted her across the street into the theatre.

'You're a bit early, you know. The curtain doesn't go up for half an hour yet,' he said, as they ascended a high flight of steps, at the top of which sat a woman with tickets in her hand.

'We were afraid of being too late.'

'It was very good of you to come. I hope you'll have a pleasant evening; it would be quite a treat to act when you were in the house.'

'But aren't you going to act, sir?'

'You mustn't call me sir; everybody calls me Dick, and I don't know anyone who has a better right to do so than you.'

'But aren't you going to act, Di—? I can't say it.'

'I don't call it acting. I come on in the first act. I just do that to save the salary, for you know I have an interest in the tour.'

Kate had no idea as to what was meant by having 'an interest in the tour,' and she did not ask, fearing to waste her present happiness in questions. Her attention was so concentrated on the big man by her side that she scarcely knew she was in a theatre, and had as yet perceived neither the star-light nor the drop-curtain. Dick spoke to her of herself and of himself, but he said nothing that recalled any of the realities of her life, and when he suddenly lifted his hand from hers and whispered, 'Here comes Miss Hender: we mustn't appear too intimate before her,' she experienced the sensation of one awaking out of a most delicious dream.

Hender cast a last retort at the two men with whom she was chaffing, and, descending through the chairs, said:

'Mr. Lennox, you're wanted behind.'

Dick promised to see them again when the act was over, and hastened away, and Hender, settling herself in her chair, looked at Kate in a way which said as distinctly as words, 'Well, my young woman, you do go it when you're out on the loose.' But she refrained from putting her thoughts into words, possibly because she feared to turn her mistress from what she considered, too obviously, indeed, to be the right path.

They were sitting in the middle division of a gallery divided into three parts, where the twilight was broken by the yellow-painted backs of the chairs, and where a series of mirrors, framed in black wood, decorated the walls, reflecting monotonously different small corners of the house.

Only a dozen or fifteen people had as yet come in, and they moved about like melancholy shades; or, when sitting still, seemed like ink-spots on a dark background.

The two women looked down into the great pit, through which the crowd was rolling in one direction, a sort of human tide, a vague tumult in which little was distinguishable; a bald head or a bunch of yellow flowers in a woman's bonnet flashed through the darkness for an instant like the crest of a wave. A dozen pale jets of a miserable iron gas-fitting hanging out of the shadows of the roof struggled in the gloom, leaving the outlines of the Muses above the proscenium as undefinable as the silhouettes of the shopkeepers in the pit. Over against the shopkeepers was the drop-curtain, the centre of which contained a romantic picture intended to prepare the spectators for the play soon to begin. Kate admired the lake, and during the long interval it seemed to her bluer and more beautiful than any she had ever seen. Along the shores there were boats with sailors hoisting sails, and she began to wonder what was the destination of these boats, if the sailors were leaving their sweethearts or setting forth to regain them.

It seemed to Kate that the play was never going to begin, so long had she been kept waiting. She did not consult Hender, but possessed her soul in patience till a thin young man came up from under the stage, pushing his glasses higher on his beak-like nose. He took his place on the high stool; he squared his shoulders; looked around; waved his stick. The sparkling marriage chorus, with the fanciful peasants and the still more fanciful bridegroom in silk, the bright appearance of Clairette at the window, and the sympathy awakened by her love for the devil-may-care revolutionary poet seduced Kate like a sensual dream; and in all she saw and felt there was a mingled sense of nearness and remoteness, an extraordinary concentration, and an absence of her own proper individuality. Never had she heard such music. How suave it was compared with the austere and regular rhythm of the hymns she sang in church! The gay tripping measure of the market-woman's song filled her with visions and laughter. There was an accent of insincerity in the serenade that troubled her as a sudden cloud might the dreams of the most indolent of lazzaroni, but the beseeching passion of the duet revealed to her sympathies for parting lovers that even her favourite poetry had been unable to do. All her musical sensibilities rushed to her head like wine; it was only by a violent effort, full of acute pain, that she saved herself from raising her voice with those of the singers, and dreading a giddiness that might precipitate her into the pit, she remained staring blindly at the stage.

Her happiness would have been complete, if such violent emotions can be called happiness, had it not been for Hender. This young person, actuated probably by a desire of displaying her knowledge, could not be prevented from talking. As each actor or actress entered she explained their position in the company, and all she knew of their habits in private life.