eagerly expectant in the girl's face.

Challoner felt embarrassed. He was sure that he ought to know who they
were, but for the life of him he could not think. He met so many
people in his rather aimless life it was impossible to remember them
all.

His eyes turned to them again and again. There was something very
familiar in the face of the elder woman--something---- Challoner knit
his brows. Who the dickens----

The lights went down here, and he forgot all about them as the curtains
rolled slowly up on Cynthia's first act.

Challoner almost knew the play by heart, but he followed it all
eagerly, word by word, as if he had never seen it before, till the big
velvet curtains fell together again, and a storm of applause broke the
silence.

Challoner rose hastily. He had just opened the door of the box to go
to Cynthia when an attendant entered. He carried a note on a tray.

"For you, sir."

Challoner took it wonderingly. It was written in pencil on a page torn
from a pocket-book.

"A lady in the stalls gave it to me, sir," the attendant explained,
vaguely apologetic.