hilst the audience is making itself happy with iced champagne
and conversation, kind and otherwise (very much otherwise), about the
late performance.

Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can desire in white
lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre, goes in search of
Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear in the opening tableau. She
makes her way to the temporary green-room, an inner hall, hidden from
the outer world by means of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a
staircase at the lower end that leads to some of the upper corridors.
Here she finds Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.

She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne, when a pale
light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts the attention of
all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes towards it, and see a
tall figure clad in white descending the stairs slowly and with a
strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel come to visit them, or Hermia
Herrick?

It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,--a
lovely apparition,--a woman indeed still, but "with something of an
angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her dusky head. Always a
distinguished-looking woman, if too cold for warmer praise, she is now
at least looking supremely beautiful.

She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the severest Greek
style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with her exquisite arms bare to
the shoulder. One naked sandalled foot can be seen as she comes
leisurely to them step by step. She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in
one hand upon a level with her head, and there is just the faintest
suspicion of a smile about her usually irresponsive lips.

No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little murmur,
indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.

"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness in her
tone as can possibly be expected from her.

"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with a burst of
genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"

But Mr. Kelly makes no reply.

A slight tinge of color deepens Mrs. Herrick's complexion as she turns
to him.

"Poor Mr. Kelly!" she says, the amused flicker of a smile flitting over
her face, which has now grown pale again. "What a situation! There!
don't sully your conscience: I will let you off your lie. That is where
an old friend comes in so useful, you see."

"At all even