t than she herself realised, she
turned back without thinking seriously of it, being willing to believe
that her sight had deceived her, where the light was so dim, and that
the door had not been really open at all. Her eyes met those of the
maid, who had evidently come to the threshold of the dressing-room to
watch her.

'I thought that door was open,' she said, as if in answer to a
question.

The woman said nothing, but passed her quickly and went and tried the
lock herself. Though she was so very thin, she was strong, as bony
people often are. She tried the handle with both hands, turned it,
though with much difficulty, and pulled suddenly with all her might.
The door yielded a little at first--not more than half an inch
perhaps--but then it closed itself again with a strength far greater
than she could resist. She shrugged her shoulders as she desisted and
came back.

'It is a disused door,' she said. 'It will not open.'

Her tone was so indifferent that Margaret paid little attention to the
words, and turned away to listen to the music which reached her from
the stage. The curtain was up now, and the courtiers were dancing, up
stage; she could see a few of them pass and repass; then she heard the
little round of applause that greeted the Duke's appearance as he went
forward to begin his scene with Borsa. He had many friends in the
invited audience, and was moreover one of the popular light tenors of
the day. Doubtless, the elderly woman of the world who worshipped him
was there in her glory, in a stage-box, ready to split her gloves when
he should sing 'La donna e mobile.' Margaret knew that the wholesale
upholsterer who admired the contralto was not far off, for she had seen
a man bringing in flowers for her, and no one else would have sent them
to her for a mere dress rehearsal.

Margaret was so well used to the opera that the time passed quickly
after the Duke had begun his scene.

The silent maid approached her with a hare's-foot and a saucer, to put
a finishing touch on her face, to which she submitted with
indifference, listening all the time to the music that came to her
through the open door. There was time yet, but she was not impatient
any more; the opera had begun and she was a part of it already, before
she had set her foot upon the stage, before she had seen, for the first
time, the full house before her, instead of the yawning emptiness. It
would be dark when she went on, for Gilda's first ent