consequences. There were bright lights, and brilliant people, the hum of
many voices, the flash of many eyes, and a half secret between her, this
little creature up in the box, and the very handsomest man of them all.

So while Othello fell about the stage, and ground out tremendous curses,
Mae half shivered and glanced tremblingly toward Bero, and Bero
gazed back protectingly and grandly. Once, when Desdemona cried
out thrillingly, "Othello, il mio marito," Mae looked at Norman
involuntarily and caught a half flash of his eye, but he turned back
quickly to his companion and Mae's glance wandered on to Bero and rested
there as the wild voice cried out again, "il mio marito, il mio marito."

So the evening slid on. Mae smiled and smiled and opened and half closed
her eyes, and Norman invited Miss Rae to go to church with him, and to
drive with him, and to walk with him, and to go to the galleries with
him, "until, Susie Hopkins, if you will believe it, I fairly thought he
would drop on his knees and ask me to go through life with him, right
then and there." So Miss Rae confided to Susie Hopkins after the
victorious night, in the silence of a fourth-story Costanzi bedroom.

Susie Hopkins was putting her hair up on crimping-pins, but she paused
long enough to say: "Well, Jack Durkee had better hurry himself and his
ring along, then."

"O, he's coming as quickly as ever he can," laughed Miss Rae, whereat
she proceeded to place a large letter and a picture under the left-hand
pillow, crimped her hair, cold-creamed her lips, and laid her down to
pleasant dreams of--Jack.