thoughts were
as far away from Moonstone as the singer's doubtless were. He had begun,
indeed, to feel the exhilaration of getting free from personalities, of
being released from his own past as well as from Thea Kronborg's. It was
very much, he told himself, like a military funeral, exalting and
impersonal. Something old died in one, and out of it something new was
born. During the duet with ORTRUDE, and the splendors of the wedding
processional, this new feeling grew and grew. At the end of the act
there were many curtain calls and ELSA acknowledged them, brilliant,
gracious, spirited, with her far-breaking smile; but on the whole she
was harder and more self-contained before the curtain than she was in
the scene behind it. Archie did his part in the applause that greeted
her, but it was the new and wonderful he applauded, not the old and
dear. His personal, proprietary pride in her was frozen out.

He walked about the house during the ENTR'ACTE, and here and there among
the people in the foyer he caught the name "Kronborg." On the staircase,
in front of the coffeeroom, a long-haired youth with a fat face was
discoursing to a group of old women about "die Kronborg." Dr. Archie
gathered that he had crossed on the boat with her.

After the performance was over, Archie took a taxi and started for
Riverside Drive. He meant to see it through to-night. When he entered
the reception hall of the hotel before which he had strolled that
morning, the hall porter challenged him. He said he was waiting for Miss
Kronborg. The porter looked at him suspiciously and asked whether he had
an appointment. He answered brazenly that he had. He was not used to
being questioned by hall boys. Archie sat first in one tapestry chair
and then in another, keeping a sharp eye on the people who came in and
went up in the elevators. He walked about and looked at his watch. An
hour dragged by. No one had come in from the street now for about twenty
minutes, when two women entered, carrying a great many flowers and
followed by a tall young man in chauffeur's uniform. Archie advanced
toward the taller of the two women, who was veiled and carried her head
very firmly. He confronted her just as she reached the elevator.
Although he did not stand directly in her way, something in his attitude
compelled her to stop. She gave him a piercing, defiant glance through
the white scarf that covered her face. Then she lifted her hand and
brushed the scarf back fr