it meant, what they were thinking--that the "Bucket-Shop King," as the
newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a
"jimmy" and "break into society." When the curtain went down for the last
intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, but
stuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has become
cowardice.

They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up
and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a
bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting
in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these
young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and
only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might
thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know
that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she
is also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" I said to myself.

When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to
hers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuated
fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search of
something to say to her, something that would start her to thinking well
of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved away
slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that wonderful
white skin of hers.

I drew back and involuntarily said, "Beg pardon." I glanced at her mother
and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression
of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the
human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon
the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs.
Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she be
more civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say that
no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideous
calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose life
is wrapped up in wealth and show.

"If you wish it," I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, "I
shall never try to see you again."

I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and
there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: "