ver once uttering a laugh and hardly ever
smiling. The light, the colour, the dresses, the gay young faces
enchanted her; but she struggled to console herself. It was only her body
that was up there, leaning over the front of the box with lips twitching
and eyes gleaming; her soul was down on the stage, clad in a lovely gown,
and carrying a mask and laughing and joking with Benedick; but she held
herself in, and when the curtain fell she began to talk of the acting.

She was still of the opinion that Leonato was excellent for such an
elderly gentleman, and when Polly praised Claudio she agreed that he was
good too.

"But Benedick is my boy for all," she said. In some way she had
identified herself with Beatrice, and hardly ever spoke of her.

During the third act this air of wisdom and learning broke down badly. In
the middle of the ballad, "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more," she
remembered Johnnie, and whispered to Drake how ill he had been when they
left the hospital. And when it was over, and Benedick protested that the
song had been vilely sung, she sat back in her seat and said she didn't
know how Mr. Irving could say such a thing, for she was sure the boy had
sung it beautifully.

"But that's the author," whispered Drake; and then she said wisely:

"Oh, yes, I know--Shakespeare, of course."

Then came the liming of the two love-birds, and she declared that
everybody was in love in plays of that sort, and that was why she liked
them; but as for those people playing the trick, they were very simple if
they thought Beatrice didn't know she loved Benedick. Claudio fell
woefully in her esteem in other respects also, and when he agreed to spy
on Hero she said he ought to be ashamed of himself anyhow.

"How ridiculous you are!" said Polly. "It's the author, isn't it?"

"Then the author ought to be ashamed of himself, also, for it is unjust
and cruel and unnecessary," said Glory.

The curtain had come down again by this time, and the men were deep in an
argument about morality in art, Lord Robert protesting that art had no
morality, and Drake maintaining that what Glory said was right, and there
was no getting to the back of it.

But the fourth act witnessed Glory's final vanquishment. When she found
the scene was the inside of a church and they were to be present at a
wedding, she could not keep still on her seat for delight; but when the
marriage was stopped and Claudio uttered his denunciation of Hero, she