zat again," replied Olga, her eyes clouding.

"You speak as if it were your swan dance," cried Michael Malone.

"Oh, I shall dance for ever," said she, "but never again like zat. You
would ask why not. I cannot tell you. I do not know. Only can I say I
shall never dance like zat again,--never."

Ruth turned her head quickly to look at the woman beside her. Olga's
face gleamed white in the starlight. Her eyes were still searching the
speckled dome, and the smile had left her lips.

"Don't say that, Olga," she whispered softly. "You will delight great
audiences again,--you will charm--"

"Possibly," interrupted the other, lowering her voice, turning her eyes
upon Ruth, and smiling mysteriously. "Great audiences, yes,--but what
are they? I appeared tonight before an audience of one. I danced as I
have never danced before,--all for zat audience of one. Your husband, my
dear. He one time informs me he has never seen me dance. Well,--tonight
I dance for him. Now, he can say he have seen Obosky dance. He will
never forget zat he have seen Obosky dance."

Ruth laughed, but it was a strained effort. "He was positively
enchanted, Olga," she said. Then she added: "But for goodness' sake,
don't ever let him know that you did it all for him. He will be so proud
and important that--"

"Oh, he knows I danced for him," broke in the Russian calmly, in a most
matter-of-fact tone.

"You--you told him?"

"I did not have to tell him. He knew, without being told. La la, my
dear! Do not look so shocked. It is a habit I have. Always I dance for
one person in my audience. I pick him out,--sometimes it is a she,--and
zen I try only to please zat one person. I make him to feel he is the
one I am dancing for, zat he is all alone in the great big hall,--all
alone with me. Maybe he is in the gallery, looking down; maybe he is in
a box, or standing up at the back of the house,--no matter where he is,
I pick him out and so I think of no one else all ze time I dance."

"And, by the same token, he is powerless to think of any one else. I
see. No wonder you charm them out of their boots."

"And all the rest of his life he will remember that I danced for him
alone, zat man. As for me,--poof! I would not recognize him again if he
came to see me a thousand nights in succession. Once I saw a very tiny
boy in the stalls. He was with his mother and father. I danced for zat
child of six. When he is a very, very old man he will look back over
the ye