while, I guess. You see, the curtain came down in the middle of a
situation, not at the end of it. The curtain has to rise again."

"Perhaps Orion will rise again--you think so?" She laughed in satire;
for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with
unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; which
is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the other
frost.

"If you want my opinion," he said in a lower voice, as they moved towards
the door, while people tried to listen to them--"if you want it straight,
I think Orion has risen--right up where shines the evening star--Oh, say,
now," he broke off, "haven't you had enough fun out of me? I tell you,
it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm--would have done it, if I
hadn't gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, little Conny Jopp,
was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. I saw an elephant
go 'must' once in India, and it was as like O'Ryan as putty is to dough.
It isn't all over either, for O'Ryan will forget and forgive, and Jopp
won't. He's your cousin, but he's a sulker. If he has to sit up nights
to do it, he'll try to get back on O'Ryan. He'll sit up nights, but
he'll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won't be pretty."

Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard
Fergus's last words.

"He'll see Orion rising if he sits up nights," Gow Johnson said. "The
game is with Terry--at last." Then he called to the dispersing gossiping
crowd: "Hold on--hold on, you people. I've got news for you. Folks,
this is O'Ryan's night. It's his in the starry firmament. Look at him
shine," he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the