difficult interview,
and very gently and imperceptibly I bid for the vacant place in her
heart.

That night we dined together.

The next day we lunched and dined together.

The next day we breakfasted, lunched, and dined together.

And on the next I determined to venture on the confession which, as you
may imagine, it had needed no little artistic control not to make on
our first meeting.

She looked particularly charming this evening, in a black silk gown,
exceedingly simple and distinguished in style, throwing up the lovely
firm whiteness of her throat and bosom, and making a fine contrast with
her lurid hair.

It was sheer delight to sit opposite her at dinner, and quietly watch
her without a word. Shall I confess that I had an exceedingly boyish
vanity in thus being granted her friendship? It is almost too boyish to
confess at my time of life. It was simply in the fact that she was an
actress,--a real, live, famous actress, whose photographs made shop
windows beautiful,--come right out of my boy's fairyland of the
theatre, actually to sit eating and drinking, quite in a real way, at
my side. This, no doubt, will seem pathetically naive to most modern
young men, who in this respect begin where I leave off. An actress!
Great heavens! an actress is the first step to a knowledge of life.
Besides, actresses off the stage are either brainless or soulful, and
the choice of evils is a delicate one. Well, I have never set up for a
man of the world, though sometimes when I have heard the Lovelaces of
the day hinting mysteriously at their secret sins or boasting of their
florid gallantries, I have remembered the last verse of Suckling's
"Ballad of a Wedding," which, no doubt, the reader knows as well as I,
and if not, it will increase his acquaintance with our brave old poetry
to look it up.

"You are very beautiful to-night," I said, in one of the meditative
pauses between the courses.

"Thank you, kind sir," she said, making a mock courtesy; "but the
compliment is made a little anxious for me by your evident implication
that I didn't look so beautiful this morning. You laid such a marked
emphasis on to-night."

"Nay," I returned, "'for day and night are both alike to thee.' I
think you would even be beautiful--well, I cannot imagine any moment or
station of life you would not beautify."

"I must get you to write that down, and then I'll have it framed. It
would cheer me of a morning when I curl my hair