night again and a recollection of Jasper's theater ticket
had dragged him to a vague purpose. He wanted to see again that woman
who had so vivified his memory of Joan. It would be hateful to see her
again, but he wanted the pain. He dressed and groomed himself
carefully. Then, feeling a little faint, he went out into the
clattering, glaring night.

Pierre's experience of theater-going was exceedingly small. He had
never been in so large a play-house as this one of Morena's; he had
never seen so large and well-dressed an audience; never heard a full
and well-trained orchestra. In spite of himself, he began to be
distracted, excited, stirred. When the curtain rose on the beautiful
tropical scene, the lush island, the turquoise sea, the realistic
strip of golden sand, Pierre gave an audible oath of admiration and
surprise. The people about him began to be amused by the excitement of
this handsome, haggard young man, so graceful and intense, so
different with his hardness and leanness, the brilliance of his eyes,
the brownness of his skin. His clothes were good enough, but they
fitted him with an odd air of disguise. An experienced eye would
inevitably have seen the appropriateness of flannel shirt, gay silk
neck-handkerchief, boots, spurs, and _chaparreras_. Pierre was
entirely unaware of being interesting or different. At that moment,
caught up in the action of the play, he was as outside of himself as a
child.

The palms of stage-land stirred, the ferns swayed; between then: tall,
vivid greenness came Joan with her tread and grace and watchful eyes
of a leopardess, her loose, wild hair decked with flowers: these and
her make-up and her thinness disguised her completely from Pierre, but
again his heart came to his throat and, when she put her hands up to
her mouth and called, his pulses gave a leap. He shut his eyes. He
remembered a voice calling him in to supper. "Pi-erre! Pi-erre!" He
could sniff the smoke of his cabin fire. He opened his eyes. Of
course, she wasn't Joan, this strange, gaunt creature. Besides, his
wife could never have done what this woman was doing. Why, Joan
couldn't talk like this, she couldn't act to save her soul! She was as
simple as a child, and shy, with the unself-conscious shyness of wild
things. To be sure, this "actress-lady" was making-believe she was a
wild thing, and she was doing it almighty well, but Joan had been the
reality, and grave and still, part of his own big, grave, mountain