ors came from curiosity to see how they
would acquit themselves; while other classes of people came because they
were eager to see well-known notabilities in unwonted situations. When
ladies, hitherto only beheld in frigid, impenetrable positions behind
their coachmen in Markton High Street, were about to reveal their hidden
traits, home attitudes, intimate smiles, nods, and perhaps kisses, to
the public eye, it was a throwing open of fascinating social secrets not
to be missed for money.

The performance opened with no further delay than was occasioned by the
customary refusal of the curtain at these times to rise more than two
feet six inches; but this hitch was remedied, and the play began. It was
with no enviable emotion that Somerset, who was watching intently, saw,
not Mr. Mild, but Captain De Stancy, enter as the King of Navarre.

Somerset as a friend of the family had had a seat reserved for him
next to that of Mrs. Goodman, and turning to her he said with some
excitement, 'I understood that Mr. Mild had agreed to take that part?'

'Yes,' she said in a whisper, 'so he had; but he broke down. Luckily
Captain De Stancy was familiar with the part, through having coached the
others so persistently, and he undertook it off-hand. Being about the
same figure as Lieutenant Mild the same dress fits him, with a little
alteration by the tailor.'

It did fit him indeed; and of the male costumes it was that on which
Somerset had bestowed most pains when designing them. It shrewdly burst
upon his mind that there might have been collusion between Mild and De
Stancy, the former agreeing to take the captain's place and act as blind
till the last moment. A greater question was, could Paula have been
aware of this, and would she perform as the Princess of France now De
Stancy was to be her lover?

'Does Miss Power know of this change?' he inquired.

'She did not till quite a short time ago.'

He controlled his impatience till the beginning of the second act. The
Princess entered; it was Paula. But whether the slight embarrassment
with which she pronounced her opening words,

'Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise,'

was due to the newness of her situation, or to her knowledge that De
Stancy had usurped Mild's part of her lover, he could not guess. De
Stancy appeared, and Somerset felt grim as he listened to the gallant
captain's salutation of the Princess, a