look at the glare through the writhing curtain. There were voices
behind in that garish furnace; and now the lights filled the theatre
again. Bedient quickly made his way with others to a side exit, the red
light of which had not attracted the crowd.

The woman was light in his arms. She wore a white net waist, and her
brown hair was unfastened. She had crushed a large bunch of English
violets to her mouth and nostrils, to keep out the smoke and gas. A
peculiar thing about it was, Bedient did not see her face. In the
alley, he handed his burden to a man and woman, standing together at
the door of a car, and went back. One of the actors had stepped in
front of the stage, and was calling out that the fire was under
control, that there was no danger whatever. The roar from the gallery
passages subsided. Only a few were hurt, since the theatre was modern
and the main exit ample.... Bedient returned to the side-door but the
woman he had carried forth was gone, probably with the pair in the car.
He decided to see the end of _Hedda Gabler_ another time. The
_Andante_, the Grecian ruin and vine-leaves were curiously blended in
his mind....

Though several days had passed since the Club affair, he had not seen
Beth Truba again. This fact largely occupied his thinking. He would not
telephone nor call, without a suggestion from her. The moment had not
come to bring up her name to David Cairns, who, since his talk with
Beth, had of course nothing to offer. So Bedient revolved in outer
darkness.... The morning after _Hedda Gabler_ he found a very good
chestnut saddle-mare in an up-town stable, and rode for an hour or two
in the Park, returning to the Club after eleven. At the office, he was
told that Mrs. Wordling had asked for him to go up to her apartment, as
soon as he came in. Five minutes later, he knocked at her door.

"Is that you, Mr. Bedient?" she called. The voice came seemingly from
an inner room; a cultivated voice, with that husky note in it which
charms the multitude. Had he not a good mental picture of Mrs.
Wordling, he would have imagined some enchanted Dolores.... "How good
of you to come! Just wait one moment."

The door opened partially after a few seconds, and he caught the gleam
of a bare arm, but the actress had disappeared when he entered. Bedient
was in a room where a torrential shower had congealed into photographs.

"I can't help it," she said at last, emerging from the inner room,
unhooked.... "I've