rt. He had the impression that the
ghosts of actors were giving a spectral performance on the shores of
Styx.

Certainly it was not the most profitable way for a young man with a
pretty companion to pass the golden hours of a spring afternoon. The
freshness of the face at his side, reflecting the freshness of the
season, suggested dapplings of sunlight through new leaves, the sound of
a brook in the grass, the ripple of tree-shadows over breezy meadows...

When at length the fateful march of the cothurns was stayed by the
single pause in the play, and Darrow had led Miss Viner out on the
balcony overhanging the square before the theatre, he turned to see if
she shared his feelings. But the rapturous look she gave him checked the
depreciation on his lips.

"Oh, why did you bring me out here? One ought to creep away and sit in
the dark till it begins again!"

"Is THAT the way they made you feel?"

"Didn't they _YOU?_...As if the gods were there all the while, just behind
them, pulling the strings?" Her hands were pressed against the railing,
her face shining and darkening under the wing-beats of successive
impressions.

Darrow smiled in enjoyment of her pleasure. After all, he had felt all
that, long ago; perhaps it was his own fault, rather than that of the
actors, that the poetry of the play seemed to have evaporated...But no,
he had been right in judging the performance to be dull and stale:
it was simply his companion's inexperience, her lack of occasions to
compare and estimate, that made her think it brilliant.

"I was afraid you were bored and wanted to come away."

"BORED?" She made a little aggrieved grimace. "You mean you thought me
too ignorant and stupid to appreciate it?"

"No; not that." The hand nearest him still lay on the railing of the
balcony, and he covered it for a moment with his. As he did so he saw
the colour rise and tremble in her cheek.

"Tell me just what you think," he said, bending his head a little, and
only half-aware of his words.

She did not turn her face to his, but began to talk rapidly, trying
to convey something of what she felt. But she was evidently unused to
analyzing her aesthetic emotions, and the tumultuous rush of the drama
seemed to have left her in a state of panting wonder, as though it had
been a storm or some other natural cataclysm. She had no literary or
historic associations to which to attach her impressions: her education
had evidently not comprised a c