But here was Ursula doing it every day. On the evening of the first
dress-rehearsal she wore clothes that showed her sense of fitness. As if
in casting off conventional restraints, she renounced conventional
attire; she came down to her lover wrapped in a cloak of the deep-purple
bloom of the heather of the moor, and there was a pheasant's feather in
her cap.

"_May you never regret it, my dear, my dear_," said the lover on the
stage.

"_I shall love you for a million years_," said Ursula, and we felt that
she would, and that love was eternal, and that any woman might have it
if she would put her hand in her lover's and run away with him on a
wild night!

And it was the genius of Jimmie Harding that made us feel that the thing
could be done. He sat forward in his chair, his arms on the back of the
seat in front of him. "Jove!" he kept saying under his breath. "It's the
real thing. It's the real thing--"

When the scene was over, he went on the stage and stood by Ursula. Elise
from her seat watched them. Ursula had taken off the cap with the
pheasant's feather. Her glorious hair shone like copper, her hand was on
her hip, her little swagger matched the swagger that we remembered in
the old Jimmie. I wondered if Elise remembered.

* * * * *

I am not sure what made Ursula care for Jimmie Harding. He was no longer