y behind the stage.
As Ellison raised his fingers to knock, it was opened from the inside,
and Berenice came out wrapped from head to foot in a black satin coat,
and with a piece of white lace twisted around her hair. She stopped
when she saw the two men, and held out her hand to Ellison, who
immediately introduced Matravers.

Again Ellison fancied that in her greeting of him there were some
traces of a former knowledge. But nothing in her words or in his
alluded to it.

"I am very much honoured," Matravers said simply. "I am a rare
attendant at the theatre, and your performance gave me great
pleasure."

"I am very glad," she answered. "Do you know that you made me
wretchedly nervous? I was told just as I was going on that you had
come to smash us all to atoms in that terrible _Day_."

"I came as a critic," he answered, "but I am a very incompetent one.
Perhaps you will appreciate my ignorance more when I tell you that
this is my first visit behind the scenes of a theatre."

[Illustration: But nothing in her words or in his alluded to it]

She laughed softly, and they looked around together at the dimly
burning gas-lights, the creaking scenery being drawn back from the
stage, the woman with a brush and mop sweeping, and at that dismal
perspective of holland-shrouded auditorium beyond, now quite deserted.

"At least," she said, "your impressions cannot be mixed ones. It is
hideous here."

He did not contradict her; and they both ignored Ellison's murmured
compliment.

"It is very draughty," he remarked, "and you seem cold; we must not
keep you here. May we--can I," he added, glancing down the stone
passage, "show you to your carriage?"

She laughed softly.

"You may come with me," she said, "but our exit is like a rabbit
burrow; we must go in single file, and almost on hands and knees."

She led the way, and they followed her into the street. A small
brougham was waiting at the door, and her maid was standing by it.
The commissionaire stood away, and Matravers closed the carriage door
upon them. Her white, ungloved hand, loaded--overloaded it seemed to
him--with rings, stole through the window, and he held it for a moment
in his. He felt somehow that he was expected to say something. She was
looking at him very intently. There was some powder on her cheeks,
which he noted with an instinctive thrill of aversion.

"Shall I tell him home?" he asked.

"If you please," she answered.

"Madam!" her maid int