e."

She smiled, but the polite effort and her detachment of all interest
in him were painfully visible to Esme.

"I'm sorry you still remember me so unkindly," he murmured.

"But I never do remember you at all," she explained so candidly that
Barres was obliged to avert his amused face, and Esme Trenor reddened
to the roots of his elaborate hair. Mandel, with a wry grin, linked
his arm in Trenor's and drew him away toward the flight of steps which
was the stage entrance to the dressing rooms below.

"Good-bye!" he said, waving his hat. "Hope you'll like my moonlight
frolic!"

"Where's your bally moon!" demanded Westmore.

As he spoke, an unseen orchestra began to play "_Au Claire de la
Lune_," and, behind the woods, silhouetting every trunk and branch and
twig, the glittering edge of a huge, silvery moon appeared.

Slowly it rose, flashing a broad path of light across the lawn,
reflected in the still little river. And when it was in the position
properly arranged for it, some local Joshua--probably Corot
Mandel--arrested its further motion, and it hung there, flooding the
stage with a witching lustre.

All at once the stage swarmed with supple, glimmering shapes: Oberon
and Titania came flitting down through the trees; Puck, scintillating
like a dragon-fly, dropped on the sward, seemingly out of nowhere.

It was a wonderfully beautiful ballet, with an unseen chorus singing
from within the woods like a thousand seraphim.

As for the play itself, which began with the calm and silvered
river suddenly swarming alive with water-nymphs, it had to do,
spasmodically, with the love of the fairy crown-prince for the very
attractive water-nymph, Ythali. This nimble lady, otherwise, was
fiercely wooed by the King of the Mud-turtles, a most horrid and
sprawling shape, but a clever foil--with his army of river-rats,
minks and crabs--to the nymphs and wood fairies.

Also, the music was refreshingly charming, the singing excellent, and
the story interesting enough to keep the audience amused until the
end.

There was, of course, much moonlight dancing, much frolicking in the
water, few clothes on the Broadway principals, fewer on the chorus,
and apparently no scruples about discarding even these.

But the whole spectacle was so unreal, so spectral, that its shadowy
beauty robbed it of offence.

That sort of thing had made Corot Mandel famous. He calculated to the
width of a moonbeam just how far he could go. And he n