town
was struck away. He was glad this was his last night. Always something
like this! It was forever coming up, making him feel uncomfortable,
different, making him wonder whether people were thinking about "it,"
whether they were wondering whether he was thinking about it.

Through the years he had grown used to seeing Mrs. Williams; he had
become blunted to it; sometimes he could see her without really being
conscious of "it," just because he was used to seeing her. But now that
he had just come home, had been with Ruth, there was an acute new shock
in seeing her.

During the first intermission he never looked back after that first
glance; but when the house was darkened again it was not at the stage he
looked most. From his place in the dress circle across the house he
could look over at her, secured by the dim light could covertly watch
her. It was hard to keep his eyes from her. She sat well to the front of
the box; he could see every move she made, and every little thing about
her wretchedly fascinated him. She sat erect, hands loosely clasped in
her lap, seemingly absorbed in the play. Her shoulders seemed very white
above her gauzy black dress; in that light, at least, she was beautiful;
her neck was long and slim and her hair was coiled high on her head. He
saw a woman bend forward from the rear of the box and speak to her; it
brought her face into the light and he saw that it was Mrs. Blair--Edith
Lawrence, Ruth's old chum. He crumpled the program in his hand until his
friend looked at him in inquiry; then he smiled a little and carefully
smoothed the program out. But when, in the next intermission, he was
asked something about how he thought the play was going to turn out, he
was at a loss for a suggestion. He had not known what that act was
about. And he scarcely knew what the other acts were about. It was all
newly strange to him, newly sad. He had a new sense of it, and a new
sense of the pity of it, as he sat there that last night watching the
people who had been Ruth's and Stuart's friends; he thought of how they
had once been a part of all this; how, if things had gone differently it
was the thing they would still be a part of. There was something about
seeing Edith Lawrence there with Mrs. Williams made him so sorry for
Ruth that it was hard to keep himself pulled together. And that house,
this new sense of things, made him deeply sorry for Stuart Williams. He
knew that he missed all this, terribly m