remarkable in so gentle a spirit.

He saw Violet Grey that night at the theatre, and it was she who
spoke first of her having lately met a friend of his.

"She's in love with you," the actress said, after he had made a show
of ignorance; "doesn't that tell you anything?"

He blushed redder still than Mrs. Alsager had made him blush, but
replied, quickly enough and very adequately, that hundreds of women
were naturally dying for him.

"Oh, I don't care, for you're not in love with HER!" the girl
continued.

"Did she tell you that too?" Wayworth asked; but she had at that
moment to go on.

Standing where he could see her he thought that on this occasion she
threw into her scene, which was the best she had in the play, a
brighter art than ever before, a talent that could play with its
problem. She was perpetually doing things out of rehearsal (she did
two or three to-night, in the other man's piece), that he as often
wished to heaven Nona Vincent might have the benefit of. She
appeared to be able to do them for every one but him--that is for
every one but Nona. He was conscious, in these days, of an odd new
feeling, which mixed (this was a part of its oddity) with a very
natural and comparatively old one and which in its most definite form
was a dull ache of regret that this young lady's unlucky star should
have placed her on the stage. He wished in his worst uneasiness