r-jaw began to move. But Miss
Schley came on to the stage again, and he thrust his head eagerly
forward.

During the rest of the evening Miss Schley did not relax her ingenious
efforts of mimicry, but she took care not to make them too prominent.
She had struck her most resonant note in the first act, and during the
two remaining acts she merely kept her impersonation to its original
lines. Lady Holme watched the whole performance imperturbably, but
before the final curtain fell she knew that she was not going to
throw cold water on that flame which was burning within her. Fritz's
behaviour, perhaps, decided which of the two actions should be carried
out--the douching or the fanning. Possibly Leo Ulford had something to
say in the matter too. Or did the faces of friends below in the stalls
play their part in the silent drama which moved step by step with the
spoken drama on the stage? Lady Holme did not ask questions of herself.
When Mr. Laycock and Fritz were furiously performing the duties of a
claque at the end of the play, she got up smiling, and nodded to Mrs.
Wolfstein in token of her pleasure in Miss Schley's success, her opinion
that it had been worthily earned. As she nodded she touched one hand
with the other, making a silent applause that Mrs. Wolfstein and all her
friends might see. Then she let Leo Ulford put on her cloak and called
pretty words down Mrs. Leo's trumpet, all the while nearly deafened by
Fritz's demonstrations, which even outran Mr. Laycock's.

When at last they died away she said to Leo:

"We are going on to the Elwyns. Shall you be there?"

He stood over her, while Mrs. Ulford watched him, drooping her head
sideways.

"Yes."

"We can talk it all over quietly. Fritz!"

"What's that about the Elwyns?" said Lord Holme.

"I was telling Mr. Ulford that we are going on there."

"I'm not. Never heard of it."

Lady Holme was on the point of retorting that it was he who had told her
to accept the invitation on the ground that "the Elwyns always do you
better than anyone in London, whether they're second-raters or not," but
a look in Leo Ulford's eyes checked her.

"Very well," she said. "Go to the club if you like; but I must peep
in for five minutes. Mrs. Ulford, didn't you think Miss Schley rather
delicious--?"

She went out of the box with one hand on a pink arm, talking gently into
the trumpet.

"You goin' to the Elwyns?" said Lord Holme, gruffly, to Leo Ulford as
they got thei