looking beyond
the gloomy, unlit spaces of the theater into some unexpected land.

Curiously enough, the three people there most interested in her--the
prince, Graillot, and her friend, Sophy Gerard--each noticed the change.
The little fair-haired girl, who owed her small part in the play to
Louise, quitted her chair to follow the direction of her friend's eyes.
Faraday, with the frown of an actor-manager resenting an intrusion,
gazed in the same direction.

To Sophy, the newcomer was simply the handsomest young man she had ever
seen in her life. To Faraday he represented nothing more nor less than
the unwelcome intruder. The prince alone, with immovable features, but
with a slight contraction of his eyebrows, gazed with distrust, almost
with fear, unaccountable yet disturbing, at the tall hesitating figure
that stood just off the stage.

Louise only knew that she was amazed at herself, amazed to find the
walls of the theater falling away from her. She forgot the little
company of her friends by whom she was surrounded. She forgot the
existence of the famous dramatist who hung upon her words, and the
close presence of the prince. Her feet no longer trod the dusty boards
of the theater. She was almost painfully conscious of the perfume of
apple-blossom.

"You!" she exclaimed, stretching out her hands. "Why do you not come and
speak to me? I am here!"

John came out upon the stage. The French dramatist, with his hands
behind his back, made swift mental notes of an interesting situation. He
saw the coming of a man who stood like a giant among them, sunburnt,
buoyant with health, his eyes bright with the wonder of his unexpected
surroundings; a man in whose presence every one else seemed to represent
an effete and pallid type of humanity.

The dramatist and the prince were satisfied, however, with one single
glance at the newcomer. Afterward, their whole regard was focused upon
Louise. The same thought was in the mind of both of them--the same
fear!

VIII

Those first few sentences, spoken in the midst of a curious little crowd
of strangers, seemed to John, when he thought of his long waiting,
almost piteously inadequate. Louise, recognizing the difficulty of the
situation, swiftly recovered her composure. She was both tactful and
gracious.

"Do tell me how you got in here," she said. "No one is allowed to pass
the stage door at rehearsal times. Mr. Faraday, to whom I wi