You can't
think how eager I have been to see you again, Mrs. Ponsonby."

There was a strange break in his voice, as if he were trying to
restrain the rush of happiness.

All the six mighty artists who made the opera the marvel it was were
combining their voices in the closing sextet of the fourth act, and
Deena, thrilled by the loveliness of the music and, perhaps, by the
surprise of French's presence, felt she was trembling with excitement.

"Fancy meeting you here!" she kept repeating, the stupid phrase
concealing the great joy that was puzzling her conscience.

"What is so wonderful in my being in my aunt's opera box?" Stephen
demanded. "Cannot a professor of zoology like music, or do you object
to a bachelor owning an aunt?"

How pleasant it was to hear his kind voice, with its good-natured
raillery! But that was sub-conscious pleasure--her immediate attention
was busy with the first part of his speech about his aunt's opera box;
she never supposed he had any relations.

"Who is your aunt?" she asked, abruptly.

"Mrs. Star," he answered. "Don't you see the family likeness?"

And oddly enough, in the half light, there was a distinct resemblance
in the profile of the bewigged old lady to her handsome young
kinsman's. Deena regretted both the likeness and the relationship; it
made her uncomfortable to know that Stephen was the nephew of this
worldly-minded old lady, with her fictitious standards and her
enormous riches; it seemed to place a barrier between them and to lift
him out of the simplicity of his college setting.

"Have I become a snob in this Relentless City'?" she exclaimed. "_I_
find my whole idea of you changed by this announcement. It depresses
me! You seem to me a different person here, with these affiliations of
fashion and grandeur, than when I thought of you simply as Simeon's
friend."

"Don't think of me simply as Simeon's friend," he pleaded, half in
fun, half in sinful earnest.

"I never shall again," she said, sadly. "Your greatest charm is
eclipsed by this luxury--I want you to belong to Harmouth only."

Stephen's lips were twitching with suppressed amusement.

"There is a proverb, my dear lady," he said, "of the pot and the
kettle, that you may recall. I am not sure but what I may find a word
to say to you upon the cruelty of disturbing associations."

"To me!" she said, turning to him with the gentle dignity that was her
crowning charm. "Surely there are no surprises in me."