will
love him always.

Morgan could not see what Cleo could possibly add to this, and his
curiosity gave him some little temporary spurt of interest as the
curtain rose. Up it went, slowly, slowly, and the apartment in the
palace stood revealed in all the glory of gilded pillars and mirrors
and rugs. In front of a huge stretch of mirror on the right was a
couch, on which sat Cleo, wrapped in a sort of yellow silk cloak which
fell about her in pleasing folds. Morgan was beginning to think that
she must have deemed it best to omit the innovation, when Cleo rose
languorously, took a step towards the great mirror, and, standing
erect, inspected herself therein. "Yes, I am worthy of him," she said
to herself proudly, then, with a brusque movement, she disengaged the
garment from her shoulders and it slipped to the ground and lay there
in a soft heap. The spectators then became aware that, save for a sort
of transparent web of floating serpentine drapery, it had been her
sole covering, and Cleo herself remained gazing into the mirror,
regarding her gleaming reflection with evident admiration, whilst the
other mirrors likewise gave back the sinuous grace and superb
modelling of her body.

The silence for a moment was profound and painful. Cleo's audacity had
caught the audience by the throat so that it could not breathe. Her
all-consuming egotism had driven her to this device for satisfying her
rage for the world's admiration. And as she stood there in statuesque
pose, her rich golden-red hair falling over her shoulders and the full
scarlet of her lips gleaming startlingly, awaiting a great storm of
charmed applause, for which the audience seemed to be gathering its
forces in the interval, again she sent that strange loose softness of
her voice floating through the theatre like a hot wind: "Yes, I am
worthy of him."

But she had scarcely got through the phrase when a piercing cat-call
shrilled through the house from the back of the pit. Almost
simultaneously a derisive howl came from the gallery; and then an
appalling hissing, hooting, and groaning broke on Cleo with the force
of a tempest that drove towards her from all points. She turned a
defiant face to it and gave the house a blazing look of contempt. But
a whole chorus of cat-calls now sprang up, dominating a sort of
see-saw of dissonant disapprobation. The stalls alone sat in solemn,
wondering silence, not unmixed with apprehension. And suddenly the
curtain began t