e turned to Edwardes and repeated in
a mockery of awed surprise.

"He wants to have a dance! Do my ears deceive me? Hamilton whom we can't
drag to a party with a truant officer wants a dance."

Edwardes smilingly lifted the cloak from her shoulders and held out his
hand. "Good-night. Try to get me an invitation," he begged. "Mr. Burton,
can't I drop you at your house?"

"If you don't mind." The elderly gentleman rose and made his way toward
the hall, with a step that wavered from the line. When they had gone,
Hamilton accompanied his sister to the stairs, with an arm about her
waist.

"Mary," he suggested, "a question has just occurred to me. What has
become of your duke?"

She turned on the landing and laughed.

"When I came back from abroad, you begged me to rid myself of foreign
affectations," she announced. "He was one of them and I took your
advice."

"I only begged you to drop your affectations of speech. What I called
your pidgin English," he assured her. "I didn't seek to hamper your
young affections."

"Then I will reply to your question in very colloquial American," she
retorted. "As to the duke--I tied a can to him." She turned and ran
lightly up the stairs.

* * * * *

Paul had sat through the opera that evening with his customary intensity
of interest--but the chatter in the box had irritated him. He had been,
of late, seeing a great deal of Loraine Haswell, and he thought she at
least might have sympathized with his mood and refrained from
disconcerting small talk. Their intimacy had so ripened that she should
have understood how the things he had to say in their tete-a-tetes could
not be uttered in company. So when she invited him to join her
supper-party he declined with a poor grace.

Paul Burton took the opera seriously, almost religiously, and as he
strolled in the foyer during an entr'acte, his annoyance grew. Was there
no place where one could enjoy the art of fellow-artists without having
one's spirit jarred out of all receptiveness?

Then he remembered the high perches of the less-fashionable devotees. He
had never been up there, but he had heard that the occupants of these
upper galleries frowned on noise and even refrained from applause,
drinking in the music as though it were too sacred a thing to treat as a
mere evening's entertainment. Following a momentary whim, he went out to
the box-office and bought a fresh ticket. Holding it in his hand, he