f youth! The glow had gone out
of her eyes; the winged happiness, which had given her face the look as
of one flying towards life, had passed, leaving her features a little
wan and drawn, and fading her delicate skin to the colour of withered
flowers. Yet the little smile, which lingered like autumn sunshine
around her lips, was full of that sweetness which time could not
destroy, because it belonged not to her flesh, but to an unalterable
quality of her soul; and this sweetness, which she exhaled like a
fragrance, would cause perhaps one of a hundred strangers to glance
after her with the thought, "How lovely that woman must once have been!"

"Are you ready?" asked Oliver, coming out of his dressing-room, and
again she started and turned quickly towards him, because it seemed to
her that she was hearing his voice for the first time. So nervous, so
irritable, so quivering with suppressed feeling, was the sound of it,
that she hesitated between the longing to offer sympathy and the fear
that her words might only add to his suffering.

"Yes, I am quite ready," she answered, without adding that she had been
ready for more than an hour; and picking up her wrap from the bed, she
passed ahead of him through the door which he had opened. As he stopped
to draw the key from the lock, her eyes rested with pride on the gloss
of his hair, which had gone grey in the last year, and on his figure,
with its square shoulders and its look of obvious distinction, as of a
man who had achieved results so emphatically that it was impossible
either to overlook or to belittle them. How splendid he looked! And what
a pity that, after all his triumphs, he should still be so nervous on
the first night of a play!

In the elevator there was a woman in an ermine wrap, with Titian hair
under a jewelled net; and Virginia's eyes were suffused with pleasure as
she gazed at her. "I never saw any one so beautiful!" she exclaimed to
Oliver, as they stepped out into the hall; but he merely replied
indifferently: "Was she? I didn't notice." Then his tone lost its
deadness. "If you'll wait here a minute, I'd like to speak to Cranston
about something," he said, almost eagerly. "I shan't keep you a second."

"Don't worry about me," she answered cheerfully, pleased at the sudden
change in his manner. "Stay as long as you like. I never get tired
watching the people."

He hurried off, while, dazzled by the lights, she drew back behind a
sheltering palm, and s