, right there by his
side? To Mr. Heatherbloom the tinsel palace had become a temple of
felicity and wonder. Suddenly he started and his face changed.

"The Great Diamond Robbery," one of the films, was in progress, and
there, depicted on the canvas, amid many figures, he saw himself, the
most pronounced in that realistic group. And Betty Dalrymple saw the
semblance of him, also, for she gave a slight gasp and sat more erect.
In the moving picture he was running away from a crowd.

"Shall--shall we go?" The face of the flesh-and-blood Mr. Heatherbloom
was very red; he looked toward the door.

She did not answer; her eyes continued bent straight before her, and she
saw the whole quick scene of the drama unfolded. Then the street became
cleared, the fleeing figure had turned a corner as an automobile, not
engaged for the performance, came around it and went by. A big car--her
own--she was in it. She caught, like a flash on the canvas, a glimpse of
herself looking around; then the scene came to an end. Betty Dalrymple
laughed--a little hysterically.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, oh!"

He became, if possible, redder.

"Oh," she repeated. Then, "Why"--with eyes full of mingled tragedy and
comedy--"did you not explain it all that day, when--"

Of course she knew even as she spoke why he could not, or would not.

"You had cause to think so many things," he murmured.

"But that! How--how strange! I saw you, and--"

He laughed. "And the manager told me I was a 'rotten bad' actor! Those
were his words; not very elegant. But I believed him, until now--"

"Say something harsh and hard to me," she whispered, almost fiercely. "I
deserve it."

The violet eyes were passionate. "Betty!" he exclaimed wonderingly.

"Do you call that harsh?" she demanded mockingly. "You--you should be
cross with me--scold me--punish me--"

"Well," he said calmly, "you haven't believed _that_, lately, anyhow."

"No; I just set it aside as something incomprehensible, not to be
thought of, or to be considered any more. I believed in you, with all my
soul, since last night--a good deal before that, yes, yes!--in my
innermost heart! You believe me, don't you?"

He answered, he hardly knew what. Some one was singing _Put on Your Old
Gray Bonnet_. Her shoulder touched his arm and lingered there. "Oh, my
dear!" she was saying to herself. The pianist banged; the vocalist
bawled, while Mr. Heatherbloom sat in ecstasy.

CHAPTER XXV

GAIETIES