sentiment,
preserving yet a spark or two of the soft fire! Could he have known
the contents of that note and their significance, with what fervor of
refusal he would have cast it back at her! But he knew nothing, save
that Truda's acting restored to him sometimes for an hour or two the
emotions of his youth, and he was very much her servant. It was in
the spirit of devotion and service that he called a droshky, and
fared out to the crooked streets of the Jewish quarter to do his
errand. It was a fine soft night, with a clear sky of stars, and
Monsieur Vaucher enjoyed the drive. And as he went, jolting over the
cobbles of the lesser streets, he suffered himself to recall the
great scene of that night's play--a long slow situation of a woman at
bay, opposing increasing odds with increasing spirit--and experienced
again his thrill.

"Ah," he murmured over his cigar; "the Schottelius, she has the sense
of climax!"

And so he duly delivered the note and returned to the hotel and bed,
a man content with the conduct of his own world.

Things went well with Truda and Vaucher and all the company for the
next two days. Never had she been so amenable to those who charged
themselves with her interests, never so generally and mildly amiable
to those who had to live at her orders. But none of those who came in
contact with her failed to observe a new note in her manner. It was
not that she was softer or gentler; rather it seemed that she was
more remote, something absent and thoughtful, with a touch of
raptness that lent the true air of inspiration to her acting. Her
spare time she spent with the baby--she and Marie, her maid, playing
with it, making a plaything of it, ministering to it, and obeying it.
It had never cried once since Truda had taken it in her arms, but
adapted itself with the soundest skill to its surroundings and
companions.

"I found it ten years too late," said Truda once.

Her maid looked at her curiously.

"It is surprising that Madame should not have found one before," she
said.

Those two days were placid and full of peace, quiet with the lull of
emptiness. But in them Truda did not forget. She was realizing
herself, and her capacity to deal with a situation that would not be
devised to show her talents. She felt that she stood, for the first
time, on the threshold of brisk, perilous, actual life, of that life
which was burlesqued, exaggerated, in the plays in which she acted.
It was expectancy that