When the dress rehearsal lasted eleven hours, everybody connected with
the Orient prophesied the doom of Cupid; and yet, on the twenty-first of
September, the ballet was produced with truly conspicuous success. The
theme was Love triumphant through the ages, from the saffron veils and
hymeneal torches and flickering airs of Psyche's chamber, through
Arthur's rose-wreathed court and the mimic passions of Versailles, down
to modern London transformed by the boy god to a hanging garden of
Babylon.

The third scene was a Fete Champetre after Watteau at sunset. Parterres
of lavender and carnations bloomed at the base of statues that gradually
disappeared in shadow as the sunset yielded to crimson lanterns. The
scene was a harmony of gray and rose and tarnished silver. Love himself
wore a vizard, and the dances were very slow and stately. The leisured
progress of the scene gave Jenny her first opportunity to scan the
audience. She saw a clear-cut face, dead white in the blue haze that
hung over the stalls. She was conscious of an interest suddenly aroused,
of an interest more profound than anything within her experience. For
the first time the width of the orchestra seemed no barrier to
intercourse. She felt she had only to lean gently forward from her place
in the line to touch that unknown personality. She checked the impulse
of greeting, but danced the rest of the movement as she had not danced
for many months, with a joyful grace. When the _tempo di minuetto_ had
quickened to the _pas seul_ of a Ballerina and the stage was still,
Jenny stood far down in the corner nearest to the audience. Here, very
close to the blaze of the footlights, the auditorium loomed almost
impenetrable to eyes on the stage, but the man in the stalls, as if
aware that she had lost him, struck a match. She saw his face flickering
and, guided by the orange point of a cigar, whispered to Elsie Crauford,
who was standing next to her:

"See that fellow in evening dress in the stalls?"

"Which one?"

"The one with the cigar--now--next to the fat man fanning himself. See?
I bet you I get off with him to-night."

"You think everybody's gazing at you," murmured Elsie.

"No, I don't. But he is."

"Only because he can see you're making eyes at him."

"Oh, I'm not."

"Besides, how do you know? He isn't waving his programme nor nothing."

"No; but he'll be waiting by the stage-door."

"I thought you didn't care for fellows in evening dress," sai