aw little of Harry and Le
Mire not at all. At the time, I remember, I was interested in some
chemical experiments--I am a dabbler with the tubes--and went out but
little. Then--this was on Friday--Harry sought me out in the
laboratory to tell me he was going away. In answer to my question,
"Where?" he said, "I don't know."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Oh, a week--perhaps a month."

I looked at him keenly, but said nothing. It would have done no good
to force him into an equivocation by questions. Early the next morning
he departed, with three trunks, and with no further word to me save a
farewell. No sooner was he gone than I started for the telephone to
call up Le Mire; but thought better of it and with a shrug of the
shoulders returned to the laboratory.

It was the following Monday that was to see the first appearance of Le
Mire at the Stuyvesant. I had not thought of going, but on Monday
afternoon Billy Du Mont telephoned me that he had an extra ticket and
would like to have me join him. I was really a little curious to see
Le Mire perform and accepted.

We dined at the club and arrived at the theater rather late. The
audience was brilliant; indeed, though I had been an ardent
first-nighter for a year or two in my callow youth, I think I have
never seen such a representation of fashion and genius in America,
except at the opera.

Billy and I sat in the orchestra--about the twelfth row--and half the
faces in sight were well known to me. Whether Le Mire could dance or
not, she most assuredly was, or had, a good press-agent. We were soon
to receive an exemplification of at least a portion of the reputation
that had preceded her.

Many were the angry adjectives heaped on the head of the dancer on that
memorable evening. Mrs. Frederick Marston, I remember, called her an
insolent hussy; but then Mrs. Frederick Marston was never original.
Others: rash, impudent, saucy, impertinent; in each instance
accompanied by threats.

Indeed, it is little wonder if those people of fashion and wealth and
position were indignant and sore. For they had dressed and dined
hastily and come all the way down-town to see Le Mire; they waited for
her for two hours and a half in stuffy theater seats, and Le Mire did
not appear.

The announcement was finally made by the manager of the theater at a
little before eleven-o'clock. He could not understand, he said--the
poor fellow was on the point of wringing his hands wi