followed Susy watchfully wherever she went,
though he was as distant and respectful with her as he was with most
women. He had a curious kind of respect for women, George had. Even the
Slingsbys, that all the men in the theatre joked with, he used to pass
by as though they were logs leaning against the wall. They were the
posture-girls, and anything worse besides the name _I_ never saw.

There was a thing happened once on that point which I often thought
might have given me a clew to his history if I'd followed it up. We were
playing in one of the best theatres in New York (they brought us into
some opera), and the boxes were filled with fine ladies beautifully
dressed, or, I might say, half dressed.

George was in one of the wings. "It's a pretty sight," I said to him.

"It's a shameful sight," he said with an oath. "The Slingsbys do it for
their living, but these women--"

I said they were ladies, and ought to be treated with respect. I was
amazed at the heat he was in.

"I had a sister, Zack, and there's where I learned what a woman should
be."

"I never heard of your sister, George," said I. I knew he would not have
spoken of her but for the heat he was in.

"No. I'm as dead to her, being what I am, as if I were six feet under
ground."

I turned and looked at him, and when I saw his face I said no more, and
I never spoke of it again. It was something neither I nor any other man
had any business with.

So, when I saw how he was touched by Susy and drawn toward her, it
raised her in my opinion, though I'd seen myself how pretty and sensible
a little body she was. But I was sorry, for I knew twan't no use. The
Peterses were Methodists, and Susy more strict than any of them; and I
saw she looked on the theatre as the gate of hell, and George and me
swinging over it.

I don't think, though, that George saw how strong her feeling about it
was, for after we'd been there a week or two he began to ask her to go
and see us perform, if only for once. I believe he thought the girl
would come to love him if she saw him at his best. I don't wonder at it,
sir. I've seen those pictures and statues they've made of the old gods,
and I reckon they put in them the best they thought a man could be; but
I never knew what real manhood was until I saw my partner when he stood
quiet on the stage waiting the signal to begin the light full on his
keen blue eyes, the gold-worked velvet tunic, and his perfect figure.

He looked mo