In another half-hour the little playhouse was full to overflowing. Not a seat was vacant, and scarcely an inch of space was left for the men of the party to plant their feet upon. Gay and musical were the tones of women's voices and laughter that rose and fell upon the scented air, sustained and strengthened by the more manly bassos.

The theatre itself glowed in the soft effulgence of electric light, each filament incased in a hanging crystal vase, subdued to a warm palpitating softness by silk shades of roseate hue. Flowers bloomed everywhere, piled in glowing masses along the walls and across the miniature orchestra screen. The rose-houses had been stripped of their loveliest exotics, and these rifled blossoms hung their gorgeous heads amidst a quivering background of clinging green smilax.

On each rose-silk fauteuil lay a bouquet of the golden-hued MarÉchal Niels, tied with long ribbons of palest amber, and a tiny satin programme on which, amidst quaint device of scroll work, were inscribed the characters and scenes of the coming drama.

The lever de rideau was a masterpiece from the hand of an English Academician, whose foreign name was better known in the two great English-speaking countries than others boasting a more national ring. The heavy folds of richest white silk bore testimony to the versatility of his brain and brush, since here swept garlands of trailing roses across a wonderful marble terrace, upon which were grouped in classic attitudes the sisters of histrionic art, Melpomene, Thalia, and Terpsichore.

The scene was one of luxury that had become a fine art, every detail being in itself so faultless, it required but the completing touch of contiguity to render it a rounded whole of perfection. The onlooker might well pause and ask himself if the developments of wealth, refinement, and culture, could reach a higher degree than was displayed that evening within the walls of this miniature La Scala.

The curtain rose on the perennially new and refreshing Box and Cox, in which Miss James again distinguished herself and scored her final points to rounds of ringing laughter and spontaneous applause, which savoured more of the "Surrey side," than of a languid nil admirari audience of this critical century. Between the farce and the serious work of the evening music held sway, and La Diva's glorious voice captivated all hearts and brains in Owen Meredith's "Aux Italiens," its final appealing line rounding each verse with the pathetic cry,

It was during this interval that Mr. Tremain, making his appearance in the Greenroom, found Miss Hildreth already there awaiting her first call. She was alone for the moment, and was standing with bent head and clasped hands, leaning against the tall carved chimney-screen that shielded the low burning logs on the hearth.

The long folds of her first costume, a nÉgligÉe of WÖrth's conception, fell about her in a clinging amber sheen, across which the flots and draperies of duchesse lace fell in filmy cascades. Philip stopped involuntarily for a moment, and looked at her. Her marvellous loveliness struck him afresh, as, indeed, it had a habit of doing whenever he came upon her unawares. This attribute was indeed one of Miss Hildreth's chief charms; you forgot her actual loveliness when away from her, and were apt to criticise not only it, but her. It was a criticism, however, that fell to pieces at the first contact with her, and which left you only conscious of her beauty and her fascination. You could not analyse her when she smiled, or when her deep, tender, dark blue eyes looked full into your own.

Miss Hildreth had not heard Philip's entrance; and he thus had an opportunity of watching her undisturbed and unconscious. Despite the make-up of rouge and bismuth, put on so delicately as to be almost imperceptible, the face was at that moment a sad one. All the fire, and life, and spirit, had gone out of it, and in their places an expression of weariness and despondency had crept about the mouth and eyes, which was strangely pathetic because so at variance with Miss Hildreth's usual bearing. Even the attitude, half-listless, half-weary, bespoke a state of mental depression and dejection.

Philip, as he watched her, recalled Miss James's unequivocal suggestions, and almost against his will found himself speculating as to which episode out of those ten unknown years of her life she was lamenting at that moment. He had not been present at the tea hour, and therefore had missed Rosalie's well-turned opportunity; but even without that, Miss James had contrived to sow the seeds of distrust and suspicion in his mind.

He could not look upon Patricia now without the record of those long ten years arising between him and her; across whose closed pages what experiences might not be written! Even her beauty became a source of like animadversion; could any woman possessing such a face and form count thirty years off life's score and not have drunk deep, even to satiety, of the wine of passion, that turns even as one's lips touch the cup's brim into the waters of Lethe? Miss James was right; those ten years wherein Patricia had grown from girlhood to womanhood must hold some hidden memories, into which for his peace of mind it were best he did not look, and from whose influence, as from her personality, it were wisest for him to detach himself at once.

He would end his visit at the Folly in a day or so, and when he left it so would he leave behind all recollection and all knowledge of Patricia. He desired to know nothing of her immediate past, he would refuse to be interested in her present or her future. Only, before he bid a long good-bye to the Folly and its inmates, he must once more see AdÈle Lamien; there was something to be said to her, and he must say it.

He moved slightly forward, and as he did so Patricia turned and looked up. In an instant the softer and sadder shadows passed from her face, her eyes regained their fire and light, the smile came back to her lips and chased away the dimples in cheek and chin, the soft evanescent bloom stole upward and renewed her youth and freshness as colour and contrast can alone do.

Mr. Tremain came towards her grave and unsmiling, and with something of the old dark anger on his face, that ten years ago had frightened her and deterred her from uttering the few words of reconciliation hovering on her lips; this anger was all the more pronounced because of his character costume of light livery. One does not naturally associate buckskin tops and a striped waistcoat with a countenance of gloomy disapproval.

Miss Hildreth took in the situation at a glance, and laughed out at him, one of her cold light mocking laughs, that angered Philip with its ring of insincerity.

"Well, my Knight of the Rueful Countenance," she exclaimed, "you look not only bored, but in a rage! Ah, my dear Philip, when will you learn how foolish and banale a thing it is to expend your reserve emotions on trifles? We Americans are accused of being a race incapable of experiencing any grand passion, either in conception or realisation. Perhaps it is because after cultivating our sensibilities to the highest pitch we are content to expend them on trivialities. I remember a clever Englishman once telling me that we as a nation have no measurable idea of passion save in the abstract; we appreciate wit and humour, subtle argument, keen incisive reasoning, but as to the heights and depths of one terrible all-mastering, all-absorbing emotion, it is as a dead letter to us. Our highest expression of nervous force results in an exaggerated friendship, or a marriage of convenience; we are simply incapable of what the French call une grande passion."

She stopped with another little laugh, but Mr. Tremain made no reply, so with the slightest possible shrug of her shoulders she continued:

"For example—and pardon my using you as a peg upon which to hang my argument—to look at you at this moment one would declare that nothing less than a complete collapse of the entire social system could account for such an expression of abject wretchedness. How can one be supposed to know that it is the result of nothing more tragic than an ill-starched necktie, or a poor-fitting coat?"

Again she laughed, and Philip felt the blood surge up to his face at her taunting raillery.

"I should feel honoured at being considered worthy your mockery," he said, quickly, "only that this time I cannot plead guilty to the impeachment; my costume, even to its insignificant details, is, I beg to state, beyond reproach. I cannot complain even of a rumpled tie, or an uncomfortable coat."

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "You are fortunate and to be congratulated. Does not Madame de RÉmusat tell us of the annoyance caused the great Napoleon by too tight arm-holes, and of Josephine's tears over the loss of one Cashmere, out of her two or three score? You see, my dear Philip, even the heroes of our immediate past were not above acknowledging their little weaknesses. Such items are the crumpled rose-leaves and parched peas of greatness. Dare we of a lesser mould scoff at them?"

She turned away from him as she spoke, leaving him with a decided feeling of having been taken at a disadvantage. His call followed almost immediately, so he had no time to reply; but the remembrance of her mockery remained with him, and added a touch of bitterness and reality to the situations of the play, in which he and she bore reversed relations to those of real life.

The drama selected by Esther Newbold, The Ladies' Battle, is too well-known and too great a favourite to require description. Perhaps of all drawing-room comedies it is the most pleasing and the most comprehensive. Those who have seen the foremost actresses of our day personate the young and beautiful Countess d'Autreval—who is not ashamed, though fully conscious, of her love for Henri de Flavigneul, and who bravely relinquishes it in favour of her girlish niece, LÉonie de Villegontier—will remember what scope can be shown in the development of that character, whose fundamental attributes seem at first sight to be those of impulse and self-gratification.

The scenes moved on with magic smoothness and completeness, and gradually, as the interest grew and deepened, the audience began to realise that it was upon Miss Hildreth as the Countess, and Mr. Tremain as Henri, that the chief influence and importance of the play culminated. The undercurrent of suppressed antagonism that existed between them communicated itself to the onlookers with a subtle, yet potent power; while to those who could read the writing between the lines, the situations assumed a potential gravity and significance.

From the moment of the Countess's soliloquy, "Now to be more than woman," when, recognising her growing love for the young soldier, she consults her looking-glass as the oracle which is to encourage or dissuade her from entering the lists against LÉonie, and then lays it down with the significant line, "Ah, it has deceived so many!" to her final act of renunciation, Patricia carried the house with her, and left no loophole for any anti-interest or climax.

Baby Leonard made a charming LÉonie. Her innocent face and unsophisticated manner were a capital study and a clever following of nature; but it was on Patricia Hildreth that the sympathy and sentiment centred, and there arose almost a cry of disappointment when the curtain dropped finally upon LÉonie's happiness, at the price of the nobler nature's self-sacrifice. Even her fellow actors felt her potency, and Philip most of all.

He caught her hand in his as she left the flies, and detained her one moment.

"Patty," he cried, "Patty, once more let me plead with you. Is it true, dear—are your words something more than allegory:

Are they true of your heart, Patty, Patty?"

But she checked him with her old impatient gesture, drawing away her hand from his close clasp, and laughing lightly, ironically.

"My dear Philip, too much simulating of passion has overturned your habitual self-control. Fancy quoting a couplet out of a modern drama by way of asking a question! But let me follow your lead and answer you from the epilogue:

Then she passed by him still laughing, and the echo of her laughter came back to him long after the last gleam of her silks and laces had disappeared from sight.

A grand ball completed the celebration of George Newbold's birthday, and those who were perforce the wall-flowers of the occasion noticed, not without comment, that Mr. Tremain kept sedulously away from Miss Hildreth, and that Patricia danced more often with the dark Russian stranger than with any other of Mrs. Newbold's black-coated contingent. Or, as the men put it afterwards in the smoking-room, that conceited, distinguished, red-ribboned foreigner devoted himself exclusively to the most beautiful woman of the evening, with occasional relapses to the plainest girl.

It was thus that Miss Hildreth and Rosalie James divided the honours, if such they could be called, of Count Vladimir Mellikoff's attentions.