oughts of his face,
but the recollection rather flattered her, and did not in the least
prevent her noticing the looks of admiration with which two men on the
opposite side of the car were regarding her.

Once or twice she glanced out of the window, apparently alternately
expecting and dreading to see her stalwart husband come sprinting down
the platform for the kiss he had refused.

He didn't come!

She was relieved as the train started--yet she hated to feel he could
really let her go like that!

She never guessed at the depth of suffering she had brought him. How
could she appreciate what she could never feel? She never dreamed that
as the train pulled out into the storm he stood at the end of the
station, and watched it slowly round the curve under the bridge and
pass out of sight. No one was near to see him turn aside, and rest his
arms against the brick wall, to bury his face in them, and sob like a
child, utterly oblivious of the storm that beat upon him.

* * * * *

And he sat down.

"Come on," yelled the Youngster, "where's the claque?" And he began to
applaud furiously.

"Oh, if there is a claque, the rest of us don't need to exert
ourselves," said the Lawyer, indolently.

"But I say," asked the Youngster, after the Journalist had made his
best bow. "I AM disappointed. Was that all?"

"My goodness," commented the Doctor, as he lighted a fresh cigar.
"Isn't that enough?"

"Not for _me_," replied the Youngster. "I want to know about her
_debut_. Was she a success?"

"Of course," answered the Journalist. "That sort always is."

"And I want to know," insisted the Youngster, "what became of him?"

"Why," ejaculated the Sculptor, "of course he cut his big brown
throat!"

"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "He probably went up to New York,
and hung round the stage door."

"Until she called in the police, and had him arrested as a common
nuisance," added the Lawyer.

"I'll bet my microscope he didn't," laughed the Doctor.

"And you won't lose your lens," replied the Journalist. "He never did
a blooming thing--that is, he didn't if he existed."

"Oh, my eyes," said the Youngster. "I am disappointed again. I thought
that was a simon-pure newspaper yarn--one of your reporter's
dodges--real journalese!"

"She is true enough," answered the Journalist, "and her feet are true,
and so is her red hair, and, unless she is a liar, and most actresses
are, so is he and he