red out to the wings, and capered back, wearing
on her face that divine, lost, dovelike look, while her perfect legs
gleamed white up to the very thigh-joint. Yes; on the stage she was
adorable! And raising his hands high, Fiorsen clapped and called out:
"Brava!" He marked the sudden roundness of her eyes, a tiny start--no
more. She had seen him. 'Ah! Some don't forget me!' he thought.

And now she came on for her second dance, assisted this time only by
her own image reflected in a little weedy pool about the middle of the
stage. From the programme Fiorsen read, "Ophelia's last dance," and
again he grinned. In a clinging sea-green gown, cut here and there
to show her inevitable legs, with marguerites and corn-flowers in her
unbound hair, she circled her own reflection, languid, pale, desolate;
then slowly gaining the abandon needful to a full display, danced with
frenzy till, in a gleam of limelight, she sank into the apparent water
and floated among paper water-lilies on her back. Lovely she looked
there, with her eyes still open, her lips parted, her hair trailing
behind. And again Fiorsen raised his hands high to clap, and again
called out: 'Brava!' But the curtain fell, and Ophelia did not reappear.
Was it the sight of him, or was she preserving the illusion that she was
drowned? That "arty" touch would be just like her.

Averting his eyes from two comedians in calico, beating each other
about the body, he rose with an audible "Pish!" and made his way out. He
stopped in the street to scribble on his card, "Will you see me?--G. F."
and took it round to the stage-door. The answer came back:

"Miss Wing will see you m a minute, sir."

And leaning against the distempered wall of the draughty corridor, a
queer smile on his face, Fiorsen wondered why the devil he was there,
and what the devil she would say.

When he was admitted, she was standing with her hat on, while her
"dresser" buttoned her patent-leather shoes. Holding out her hand above
the woman's back, she said:

"Oh, Mr. Fiorsen, how do you do?"

Fiorsen took the little moist hand; and his eyes passed over her,
avoiding a direct meeting with her eyes. He received an impression of
something harder, more self-possessed, than he remembered. Her face was
the same, yet not the same; only her perfect, supple little body was
as it had been. The dresser rose, murmured: "Good-afternoon, miss," and
went.

Daphne Wing smiled faintly.

"I haven't seen you for a