lgence.

CHAPTER XXII.

Only the Sphinx confronted them, after all, when they arrived at the
theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent
her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain;
Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box.
Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her
a good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling
Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her side, to observe how very perfect
and adorable the cut of her bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was
accustomed to say in moments when his humour escaped his discretion,
that there was more in a good fit than meets the eye, the _role_ of Lady
Dolly's elbows could hardly be dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the
husband attached to the elbows belonged to the Department of which
Colonel John was the head, so that they rested, one may say, upon a very
special plane.

Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins' place,
which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit, assuring the usurper,
with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen
without turquoises. "Believe it or not as you like, but I like you
better every time I see you in that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her
hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and
"love you better" floated back and dispersed itself among the men.
Alicia smiled the necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew made
compliments to her; it was a kind of cult among them. The men had
sometimes an air of envying their freedom of tongue. "Don't say that,"
she returned lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any diamonds." She,
too, looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice but said nothing. It was
doubtless precisely because she distained certain forms of feminine
barter that she got so much for nothing.

"And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, "did you find
that dear, sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at least, bye
and bye, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it
Good Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns--or do
people eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could
only be sure!"

Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were
filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh
correctness of their evening dress,