the acrobat, the
step-dancer, the comic singer, the tableaus, and the living picture. He
felt tired and ashamed, yet, he could not bring himself to go away. As
the evening advanced he thought: "How foolish! What madness it was to
think of such a thing!" He was easier after that, and began to listen to
the talk of the people about him. It was free, but not offensive. In the
frequent intervals some of the men played with the girls, pushing and
nudging and joking with them, and the girls laughed and answered back.
Occasionally one of them would turn her head aside and look into John's
face with a saucy smile. "God forbid that I should grudge them their
pleasure!" he thought. "It's all they have, poor creatures!"

But the audience grew noisier as the evening went on. They called to the
singers, made inarticulate squeals, and then laughed at their own humour.
A lady sang a comic song. It described her attempt to climb to the top of
an omnibus on a windy day. John turned to look at the faces behind him,
and every face was red and hot, and grinning and grimacing. He was still
half buried in the monastery he had left that morning, and he thought:
"Such are the nightly pleasures of our people. To-night, to-morrow night,
the night after! O my country, my country!"

He was awakened from these thoughts by an outburst of applause. The
curtain was down and nothing was going on except the putting up of a new
figure in the frames. The figure was 8. Some one behind him said, "That's
her number!" "The new artiste?" said another voice. "Gloria," said the
first.

John Storm's head began to swim. He looked back--he was in a solid block
of people. "After all, what reasons have I?" he thought, and he
determined to stand his ground.

More applause. Another leader of the orchestra had appeared. _Baton_ in
hand, he was bowing from his place before the footlights. It was Koenig,
the organist, and John Storm shuddered in the darkest corner of his soul.

The stalls had filled up unawares to him, and a party was now coming into
a private box which had hitherto been empty. The late-comers were Drake
and Lord Robert Ure, and a lady with short hair brushed back from her
forehead.

John Storm felt the place going round him, yet he steadied and braced
himself. "But this is the natural atmosphere of such people," he thought.
He tried to find satisfaction in the thought that Glory was not with
them. Perhaps they had exaggerated their intimacy with h