icket to the Olympus, and climbing the
rear approach to that elevation, found himself seated shortly with the
gallery gods, viewing with uncritical contrasts the relative merits of
the clown, the harlequin and the columbine.

Between the acts his roving glance found a sudden destination and his
elation went into abrupt decline, for seated in one of the boxes, her
glass surveying the house in all sorts of disconcerting directions, sat
the beautiful widow.

Instinctively Dennis crouched into his seat.

Fortunately he was able by thus collapsing within himself, to escape the
radius of her vision, which was interrupted by the railing extending
around the balcony.

It would never do to be discovered in his present situation. The
elevation was degrading, and Dennis understood the unhappy paradox.

It emphasized the social distinctions too much, and caused the distance
from where he sat to the placid beauty below to appear immeasurable.

But this was not the least of his perturbations.

Near the widow a gentleman sat, solicitous, engaging, persistent.

A certain air of distinction rendered doubly obnoxious the assumption of
proprietorship which Dennis believed he remarked, and while the young
man was able to comfort himself with the discovery that his bewitching
companion devoted more attention to the stage and the house than to her
escort, still, as Dennis contemplated the faultless attire of the
gentleman in the box and contrasted it with his own modest apparel, he
felt unaccountably depressed.

All this was revealed by the furtive glances which the young Irishman
ventured over the gallery rail.

A strange foreboding overwhelmed him.

The bewildering tinsel of the stage no longer diverted, and he would
have been astonished to analyze the reason why.

As the last curtain fell and Dennis was no longer able to adjust his
gloomy contemplation to incongruous orchestration, he hastened from the
theater, scrambled down the precipitate stairs and hastened to The Stag.

It was midnight before he slept, and scarcely morning when he awoke.

He dressed himself like an automaton, and breakfasted like an anchorite.

He left the hotel without his personal knowledge, and traversed half the
length of Broadway without volition. His mind was making the visit in
advance of the appointed time, and his torpid body alone observed the
social usages.

By noon the patent leathers were a reality; by six-thirty he had assumed
a clean