What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a life
might be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was!

God, how grateful she was!

Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. It
always hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her.

Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at the
same time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have been
altogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company--

Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself to
an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres
through whose portals gay audiences were pouring--

"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to
Daisy--"Selfish is the only word."

Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked
splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed
beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat
shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always
stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter.

Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silk
of her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up and
down on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ran
through her body and out at her toes and fingers?

The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings;
before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, now
in throngs, against the glittering colour.

She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could show
happiness that could equal hers.

Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outside
observer, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded her
reasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her very
inexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her now
to rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurant
she was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not be
deceived.

The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed the
string of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty's
Theatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselves
to-night.

They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happy
people were laughing and