here was a pheasant's feather in
her cap.

"_May you never regret it, my dear, my dear_," said the lover on the
stage.

"_I shall love you for a million years_," said Ursula, and we felt that
she would, and that love was eternal, and that any woman might have it
if she would put her hand in her lover's and run away with him on a
wild night!

And it was the genius of Jimmie Harding that made us feel that the thing
could be done. He sat forward in his chair, his arms on the back of the
seat in front of him. "Jove!" he kept saying under his breath. "It's the
real thing. It's the real thing--"

When the scene was over, he went on the stage and stood by Ursula. Elise
from her seat watched them. Ursula had taken off the cap with the
pheasant's feather. Her glorious hair shone like copper, her hand was on
her hip, her little swagger matched the swagger that we remembered in
the old Jimmie. I wondered if Elise remembered.

* * * * *

I am not sure what made Ursula care for Jimmie Harding. He was no longer
a figure for romance. But she did care. It was, perhaps, that she saw in
him the fundamental things which belonged to both of them, and which did
not belong to Elise.

As the days went on I was sorry for Elise. I should never have believed
that I could be sorry, but I was. Jimmie was always punctiliously polite
to her. But he was only that.

"She's getting what she deserves," Duncan said, but I felt that she was,
perhaps, getting more than she deserved. For, after all, it was she who
had kept Jimmie at it, and it was her keeping him at it which had
brought success.

Neither Duncan nor I could tell how Jimmie felt about Ursula. But the
thought of her troubled my sleep. Stripped of her art, she was not in
the least the heroine of Jimmie's play. She was of coarser clay,
commoner. And Jimmie was fine. The fear I had was that he might clothe
her with the virtues which he had created, and the thought, as I have
said, troubled me.

At last Duncan and I had to go home, although we promised to return for
the opening night. Ursula gave a farewell supper for us. She lived alone
with a housekeeper and maid. Her apartment was furnished in good taste,
with, perhaps, a touch of over-emphasis. The table had unshaded purple
candles and heather in glass dishes. Ursula wore woodland green, with a
chaplet of heather about her glorious hair. Elise was in white with
pearls. She was thirty-five, but she d