f Bedient, because the other
women fancied him; she wanted to show them and "that hag, Kate Wilkes,"
what a man desires in a woman; and now a third reason evolved. Bedient
had proved to her something of a challenging sensation. He was
altogether too calm to be inexperienced. Every instinct had unerringly
informed her of his bounteous ardor, yet he had refrained. That which
she had seen first and last about him--the excellence of his masculine
attractions--had suddenly become important because no longer
impersonal. Mrs. Wordling was fully equipped to carry out her ideas.

"You did that very well," she said, dropping her eyes before his steady
gaze, "for one experienced only with men-matters. And now, I suppose
you want to know why I took the pains to ask you here; oh, no, not to
hook me up.... I didn't know you would get back so soon; I had just
left word a few moments before you came.... Wasn't it great the way a
dreadful disaster was averted at the _Hedda Gabler_ performance last
night?... Did you see the morning paper?"

"No," said Bedient. "I was out early."

"Why, it appears that after the explosion, when everyone was crushing
toward the doors, some man in the audience took the words of _Hedda_
and steadied the crowd with them, as men and women struggled in the
darkness.... 'Now's the time for vine-leaves!' he called out. An
unknown--wasn't he lovely?"

She placed the paper before him, and he read a really remarkable
account of "the vine-leaf man" magnetizing the mob and carrying out a
fainting girl. It was absurd to him, though Ibsen's subtlety, queerly
enough, gave the story force.... No face of the audience had impressed
him; none had appeared to notice him in the dark. He wondered how the
newspaper had obtained the account.... There was a light, quick knock
at the door.

"It isn't very often that a newspaper story is gotten up so
effectively," Mrs. Wordling was saying. Apparently she had not heard
the knock. Her voice, however, had fallen in a half-whisper, more
penetrating than her usual low tones. "Do you suppose the hero will
permit his name to be known?"

The knock was repeated in a brief, that-ends-it fashion. Mrs. Wordling
with a sudden streak of clumsiness half overturned a chair, as she sped
to the door. Bedient did not at once penetrate the entire manoeuver,
but his nerve and will tightened with a premonition of unpleasantness.

Beth Truba was admitted. Quite as he would have had her do, the art