Miss Howard leaned forward in her box, laying one small, unsteady hand on the velvet-covered rail before her. That she, fastidiously well-bred by inheritance and training, should be guilty of the inconvenance of listening to the conversation of those in the box behind her own was incredible—but nevertheless a fact. She was listening, while her large, intent dark eyes followed the movements of the girl on the stage.

She was a superb creature—even there in that artificial atmosphere she carried an effect of vigorous reality. She was dancing—a slow half-Spanish dance of measured paces and bending movements that somehow, while graceful enough, was singularly lacking in all those alluring feminine appeals of glance and gesture which usually accompany such performances. She managed most deftly her long black satin skirts, and the brilliant dark blue eyes behind her darkened lashes flashed an engaging gaiety across the delighted and applauding audience, yet Philippa Howard acknowledged to herself that the applause seemed greater than the performance warranted. She looked again at her program, at the heavy black lines standing out above the list of names in ordinary type:

Philippa read over again the apparently meaningless sentence. What was it that Bertie Lacy was not? She raised her serious, questioning gaze to the stage, surveying the other girl. But all the time she was listening to the voices of the three overdressed, overfed, overwined men in the next box, when the music left their speech audible.

“All the same, I’ll bring Bertie Lacy to supper tonight,” the loudest tones were heard asserting, coarsely confident. “What? Oh, I know all about the turndowns Bertie gives to invitations, but I won’t get turned down—not tonight.”

“Why not?” queried a companion.

The girl on the stage was standing still. From somewhere she had caught up a lace scarf and flung it over her fair head; her hands were filled with the red roses that take the place of orange blossoms at a Spanish wedding. Now, as the orchestra fell into silence, she suddenly began to speak.

She was an Andalusian girl awaiting the summons to her marriage; the wild passionate, hurried love story she told was her own. Her speaking voice had the flexibility of a musical instrument and its swaying power; a low, strong contralto, almost a tenor voice in pitch. Keenly attentive, the quiet audience followed the narration, Philippa Howard with the rest, feeling and seeing what Bertie Lacy willed, shaken by alien emotion. When at last the panting and triumphant girl dropped her roses to bend her head over the crucifix drawn from her bosom, her inarticulate, vehement cry of happiness closed eloquently the story unfinished in words.

For a moment applause was not thought of; before it broke forth, the figure on the stage was gone.

The people would have Bertie Lacy back, and they did. Philippa clapped her hands as steadily as the others, her delicate, too earnest face flushed with unusual color. She recognized here an art; this was a great impersonator.

“Why are you so confident that your invitation will be accepted tonight?” came one of the voices from the box, returning to the interrupted discussion.

Bertie Lacy was on the stage again, a kerchief pinned over the black dress and a blue ribbon binding her fair hair. The abrupt silence of the satisfied people let the man’s reply come clearly to Philippa’s hearing:

“Because it’s Bertie’s twenty-fifth birthday, as I happen to know. Everybody who isn’t home is lonesome on his birthday, and Bertie will be no exception.”

The listening girl caught her breath her eyes widening and darkening. What but that loneliness had sent her, Philippa Howard, to a vaudeville theater this evening? And now a twin loneliness was to send this other girl to a questionable supper table. She looked toward the stage with an outrush of protectiveness and indignant pity.

Bertie Lacy was seated on a rough bench, a shawl drawn around her shoulders, her eyes fixed on the ground. It was a very simple story, of a lover’s quarrel and of a fisherman who sailed out not to return, that the quiet, almost monotonous voice told—told with all the self-repression and heavy rigidity of the North Sea people. But it carried its effect. Philippa felt her lashes wet; even the men in the next box were quiet.

As the applause died away Philippa distinguished the sound of moving chairs behind her.

“Well, boys, I’ll go around to the little side door and catch Bertie,” announced the confident voice.

The girl’s small dark head lifted indignantly. She half turned, then impulsively snapped open a silk bag hanging from her wrist, took from it a card and pencil and wrote:

My Dear Miss Lacy:

I have just been told that today is your twenty-fifth birthday. It is also mine. If just supper with another girl is not too dull, will you not give me the very great pleasure of passing the rest of this evening at my home? I will meet you wherever you suggest.

         Sincerely yours,

          Philippa Fairfax Howard.

A button in the wall summoned an attendant.

“Please deliver this to Miss Bertie Lacy,” she ordered.

The boy scrutinized her oddly, hesitating, but received without comment the note and a coin.

Ro[u]sed with excitement, wondering at herself, at once afraid and expectant, Philippa tried to turn her attention to the trick violinist now occupying the stage. What would Bertie Lacy answer? Would she answer at all? But she did not regret writing for one moment. She was so tired of monotony; a break was welcome, even if it hurt.

The violinist had retired and a new number was commencing. The time seemed very long. Philippa looked resolutely before her at the performer.

“Miss Howard?”

She turned swiftly and found the messenger at her shoulder.

The note was on square cut, rather large white paper.

My Dear Miss Howard:

I appreciate very much your kind invitation for this evening. It will give me great pleasure to join you whenever you leave the theater.

       Very sincerely yours,

          Bertie Lacy.

Philippa looked up at the boy, quite unconscious of her own radiant eagerness.

“Please tell Miss Lacy that we leaving at once,” she requested.

Again he gave her a curious glance that she was too absorbed to notice, but he obeyed without question.

There was a second occupant of the box, who had not moved or spoken during the last hour. To her Philippa presently turned.

“Auntie,” she summoned caressingly.

The tiny, misty-eyed old lady sat erect.

“Yes,” she responded—“yes, yes, Margarita.”

“You have not cared for the evening, dear?”

“Yes, yes, Margarita.”

But she did not look toward the stage; she had not done so since their arrival.

“Shall we go home?” Philippa gently suggested.

“Yes,” with some animation. “Yes, if you are ready.”

Philippa slipped into her own cloak of white silk and fur, folded her aunt in sealskin and they passed out.

In the lobby there was no Bertie Lacy. Philippa slowly moved on, out into the biting cold air, across the sidewalk to the limousine that rolled forward to meet them. She had put her aunt into the vehicle, when a tall girl in black advanced from the building’s shadow.

“Miss Howard?” interrogated the strong, flexible voice so individual in quality.

“Yes,” Philippa assented, holding out her hand. “And you are Miss Lacy. It is so good of you to come.”

“It is you who are good,” corrected the other. “You—are not alone?”

“My aunt is with me; Miss Fairfax.”

They looked at each other, not in casual inspection, but with a full, straight encounter of glances and attention. Bertie Lacy, wrapped in a heavy masculine fur coat worn over the black satin gown used on the stage, dwarfed the fragile patrician, not only in stature, but in vital force and energy. But Philippa Howard had much the advantage of ease and poise; her guest showed a strange hesitation, almost a reluctance in accepting the invitation to enter the motor car. It almost seemed that she would have drawn back if a group of laughing young men had not emerged from the theater at that moment.

“Home, please,” Philippa directed the chauffeur, and smiled at Bertie Lacy with the frank delight of a victorious child. “You will not find that too stupid, Miss Lacy? It will be so vivifying to have you among prosaic everyday things—like finding Titania in a solemn Puritan garden.”

“Titania? I?”

“Well, someone magical, at least,” Philippa laughed. “You cannot know”—her sensitive face sobered—“how magical it seems to have you here. I—I have so longed to talk to someone who was young.”

“I—” began Bertie Lacy hurriedly, and left the sentence unfinished.

“You think it strange for me to say that?” Philippa leaned to draw closer her aunt’s coat and put the robe about her. “We are much alone, auntie and I. You see, I was brought up in a Canadian convent until two years ago when I returned to my grandfather’s house. I had only Aunt Rose and him. Last year he died. He would have no new friends or new people at home; I know no one in New York.”

“Surely that is because you wish it so.”

“Perhaps; we are too dignified for comfort, we Howards. Oh, I know what you are thinking, but you—I said you were magical! Besides, you were just another girl; if you were not, nothing could have induced me to write you.”

At the mere thought she flushed transiently. Bertie Lacy colored also, a heavy, painful crimson that was slow to fade, and bent her head without replying.

The drive was not long. The limousine halted opposite a handsome house in a quiet avenue, the chauffeur opened the door and the three descended. The cold was intense; a vicious north wind whined through the bleak streets; but on the threshold of the house Bertie Lacy stopped decisively, facing the girl hostess.

“Miss Howard,” with appeal.

Philippa laid her small hand on the other’s arm, unheeding.

“Listen to the sleighbells, Miss Lacy! I listened to them so long this evening, as they came and went, they tinkled of so much fun and festivity, and rang through so many memories of holidays in my Canadian convent, that I could not bear the lonely house. I ran away to the theater with Aunt Rose. And there I found you, to make my birthday evening happy, after all. Let us go in.”

Firelight, tinted electric lamps and the fragrant presence of flowers relieved the sombrely rich interior. The background suited Philippa, who emerged from her furs a slender, fragile figure clad in white silk, her dark hair braided and coiled low. But Bertie Lacy, divested of wraps, was superbly out of keeping with the atmosphere, a creature of outdoors vividly alive. Her dark eyes flashed in a face brilliant rather than delicate, an effect heightened by the shading of rouge and powder still remaining from the stage make-up.

“Margarita, Margarita,” the tiny old lady summoned plaintively.

Philippa turned at once. “You are tired, dear? Shall I ring for Susan—would you like to go to bed?”

“Keep your aunt with us,” urged the guest. “Surely she can be comfortable here on a couch or a chair. She does not appear tired; it is not late.”

Philippa smiled consent.

“That is good of you, Miss Lacy, to guess she might be lonely. Indeed, she is usually with me. My mother’s name was Margarita. She and my father were lost at sea when I was a child. Lately Aunt Rose has forgotten—she calls me Margarita. I have no other kin.”

When they were seated at supper, Miss Lacy abruptly put another question. “Why did you ask me to come to your home?” she demanded.

Philippa looked with straight candor into the keen eyes opposite.

“To take care of you,” she said simply. “There were men in the box behind mine,” she went on, as the other gasped in surprise. “They—one of them said he would bring you to a supper they had planned. He said you never did such things, but you would listen to him tonight because today was your birthday, and everyone who was not at home was lonely on his birthday. I was so sorry for you and so indignant that anyone should take such cruel advantage of a solitary girl—and I thought of asking you to come with me.”

Bertie Lacy rose and walked to a window, turning her back to the room.

“And then I was lonely, also,” Philippa presently added. “It is my birthday, too—my twenty-first. So we shall have a happy evening, together, shall we not?”

The guest came back to the table. “Yes, we’ll have a happy evening, Miss Howard. I cannot thank you for your generosity—I can only wish I came with a better title into your house.”

Perhaps the professional entertainer never had lavished so much tact and art, so much gracefully concealed endeavor in amusing a great audience, as was now centered upon diverting this one girl. It was not done theatrically; nothing could have been more frank and natural than the next hour’s merriment. Even Miss Fairfax was aroused to interest and listened.

The thin, sharp chime of a Swiss clock fell unexpectedly across a lull in the conversation.

“Midnight!” Philippa exclaimed, raising a slim finger. “Our birthday is ended.”

“Midnight!” echoed Bertie Lacy, and stood up.

“You are not going—not yet?”

“I must; I have already stayed too long.”

Philippa followed the other’s retreat into the hall, impulsively eager to retain her guest.

“Please do not go tonight. Will you not stay with us? We should be so glad, Aunt Rose and I.”

“It is not possible, Miss Howard.”

“Why not? There is the telephone to notify any friends who might expect you. It is snowing and so cold. Consider”—Philippa dimpled into coaxing playfulness—“consider how proud I shall be of having entertained Bertie Lacy!”

“Miss Howard, you had a program at the theater—did you read how I am described there?”

“Certainly—‘Bertie Lacy, the only Gibson Girl who isn’t.’ Isn’t what?” The dark eyes laughed up to the searching blue ones. “Isn’t like the others, I suppose. Because you are not, you know, like anyone else.”

“That is all you saw?”

Bertie Lacy put on the heavy masculine coat and crossed the hall, opening the outer door. A rush of freezing air stormed in.

“Never again go to a theater where I am,” the visitor steadily requested. “Never speak to anyone of me or of this visit. You have given me an evening I shall not forget, Miss Howard; give me this much more.”

“Not see you again?” Philippa cried out, dismayed. “But, you will come here?”

“No, never.”

Philippa stood still, heedless of the increasing cold.

“I thought we could be friends,’” she regretted, proudly reserved. “You see, I liked you very much. But perhaps you do not like me. Thank you for tonight; you have been most good. Oh, you will wait while I send for the limousine, of course.”

With a swift movement Bertie Lacy stepped back into the hall and caught the young girl’s offered hand.

“The way I like you you’ll never know. What I have felt tonight you’ll never understand. I’m not of your world. Miss Howard, I hope God will send you the right one to do for you what Bertie Lacy would do and could do, and must not. Good night.”

Dazed, uncomprehending, Philippa Howard remained in the bitter wind, gazing into the blank snow-filled darkness that had taken her guest.

“Margarita, Margarita!” called the plaintive old voice after a moment.

The girl started, shivering violently, and went to close the front door. She realized then that she was chilled to numbness.

Seven days had passed when an elderly gentleman called at Bertie Lacy’s apartment one afternoon.

“I am Dr. Wilfred Strong,” he announced, with some hesitation. He wore short gray side whiskers which he fingered uncertainly, eyeing his companion in doubt. “I have come on a delicate errand. Really, I hardly know how to say it. Did you—I mean were you—the guest of a young lady last Thursday evening, may I ask?”

Bertie Lacy gave a great start.

“I had that honor,” was the slow reply, given after a brief pause.

“Ah—pardon me—under a misconception on the lady’s part?”

“Yes.”

The physician pursed his lips, but ventured no comment.

“The young lady has been ill,” he stated, drily precise—“very ill. She recalls standing a considerable time in an open doorway, wearing a light evening gown. The thermometer fell below zero that night, you will remember. The next day she developed pneumonia. Excluding mischance, she will recover; the worst is over. But I need not say how slight a thing may delay or ruin all—a fixed idea preying on the mind, the denial of a wish.”

The two looked at each other across the sunny, bright-hued little room.

“She wants to see you,” said Dr. Strong.

Bertie Lacy turned silently to the miniature hearth where blue gas flames curled monotonously around an imitation log. It was not a happy face that the physician watched, nor a tranquil one.

“I think,” the doctor added, after awaiting a reply, “that she must see you. The hold that you have taken upon her imagination is, under the circumstances, uncanny. Having carried the affair so far, you have a duty—” His voice died away.

“I will go,” said Bertie Lacy. “Now?”

“It would be advisable. Ah—she will expect to see you as you appeared to her before, of course.”

“I will make ready. Will you have a taxicab at the door?”

“Miss Howard’s automobile is below; I came in it. We can return together, if you like.”

The room where Philippa Howard had fought out the battle whose victory was still so ill assured was a lofty, dull, handsome place, like all the interior of the house.

The distant sound of a closing door startled wide the patient’s large, wistful dark eyes; steps on the stairs held her listening, intent. Her own door opened.

“Bertie Lacy!” rang the eager greeting. “Bertie—Lacy!”

Bertie Lacy crossed the room to take the transparent little hand offered.

“You are so much alive,” Philippa panted happily. “I somehow thought I must get well if I saw you. You do not mind?”

“Do you not know that I would give everything I have to help you?”

“Yes, I know. Stay a little while.”

There was a chair beside the bed. At the doctor’s gesture, the visitor took that seat. Philippa lay quietly absorbing the companionship, her hand still resting in the firm, not small hand of the other. At another time she might have wondered that Bertie Lacy should come bareheaded and wearing the black satin gown of the theater, but now she saw only the color and vigor, the effect of youth and glowing health that was even more apparent than when it first enchanted her.

“You are going to grow strong, quite strong, and go South,” Bertie Lacy said after a while, the low-pitched voice at once soothing and arousing.

“It is so far,” wearily.

“But worth seeking. Listen, I will tell you.”

It was the “great impersonator” who told her. The sober doctor and nurse listened also, fascinated. The walls of the dull room were down; all the glitter and allure of a Southern beach, the sapphire and silver places where people made playfellows of the days, all the call and appeal of life rose to summon the girl who had not lived. And she responded, slowly brightening.

“Yes, I would go there,” she finally sighed. “Why not you, too?”

“No; I cannot. I must stay here with my work.”

Philippa put out an unsteady hand, drawing the other closer.

“Listen, Bertie—I cannot say ‘Miss Lacy,’ now—bend your head so they will not hear us. Tell me, did you ever love anyone—I mean, as lovers do?”

Bertie Lacy regarded the colorless, delicate face set in clustering dark hair that overlay the pillow, and looked away.

“Yes,” was the smothered reply.

“You know it, then, that wonderful thing! Since you were last here, I have had so much time to think, to wonder if ever I could feel so. Somehow you made me restless and changed me. You did not speak of such things, but you made me think of them. You will be married some day?”

“Never. The one I love does not and must not care for me. To marry me would be ridiculous, would be social disaster. I am a paid plaything and cannot ask the world to consider me seriously.”

The soft, weak fingers crept to touch the clenched hand.

“Poor Bertie! But if he loved you nothing could matter. I am only a girl, but nothing would matter to me. And surely you are too bitter; that is not so.”

“It is so.”

“Not for you! It is very easy to love you. Let me tell you a fancy of mine; I think, I am quite certain, that if ever I care for anyone, he will have eyes like yours, Bertie.”

The exclamation that escaped the visitor was almost a cry of protest: “Hush, hush! You must not tell me such things; I have no right to listen!”

The doctor came across the room, finger lifted warningly; the nurse stiffened in frigid disapproval. Bertie Lacy had risen, turning away from the young girl, but checked movement at sight of the rebuking two and stood still.

“What did I say?” Philippa questioned, too weak for great wonder. “Are you angry?”

“No, no,” was the hurried assurance. “I beg your pardon; it was nothing. I must go.”

“You will come again soon?”

“Forgive me; it is best that I should not.”

Philippa’s sensitive face clouded childishly.

“But I want you tocome! If you do not, I shall not get well, I know.”

Bertie Lacy looked from physician to patient, and submitted.

“Very well; I will come again. But not until you are quite strong. If you want to see me, get well.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“You have talked enough, Miss Howard,” interposed the doctor. “You must rest now.”

Philippa moved her head in obedient resignation, still regarding her visitor. “Bertie, kiss me good-bye.”

Bertie Lacy drew back, suddenly pale. “Miss Howard!”

“You—you do not want to?’” Amazed pain flooded her dark eyes. “We are not friends then?”

“Yes—I—you do not understand.”

“I understand; I have troubled you very much. I am sorry; please remember that I was very lonely. Goodbye.”

She averted her grieved face resolutely, her lashes falling to aid concealment of feeling. Bertie Lacy uttered a sharp, inarticulate exclamation, then stooped almost with desperation and kissed her soft mouth, unconsciously gripping the hand she had extended.

“Get well,” was the curt adjuration. “Only get well!”

The doctor overtook the departing guest at the door, but was given no opportunity for speech.

“If you let her send for me again before she is strong enough to hear the truth, I’ll make you pay for it!” Bertie Lacy blazed out at him. “I won’t come; I’ll leave the city first. To drag her—her—”

“As for learning the truth, I think you have just shown it to her yourself,” the doctor drily retorted. “And you began the matter.”

“Oh, I’m paying in full! But this ends it, do you hear? Ends it!”

There was no further summons for Bertie Lacy. One month passed—two. Early in the spring the name of the “Great Impersonator” abruptly disappeared from programs and billboards.

“Bertie’s gone in for headwork,” someone said. “Writing a play. Bet he makes good! Bertie’s always a winner.”

But there are situations that refuse to be ignored. On the first of March a card was delivered at the home of Bertie Lacy.

There lay so much behind that brief legend. Bertie Lacy knew it, and spent a white night before the little hearth where blue flames curled monotonously around the unconvincing imitation log. But the offered appointment was kept.

Philippa Howard knew that it would be kept. Perhaps she had had her white nights before writing to make it. A few minutes before the hour she was waiting alone in the massive drawing room. At four o’clock a servant parted the dull brocaded curtains and introduced the guest.

Bertie Lacy came halfway down the room and stopped, waiting in a silence submissive rather than expectant.

“Mr. Lacy,” began the young girl—“Mr. Lacy—” and halted.

No less strongly agitated, he moved a step nearer.

“Since you have let me come, you will hear my defense before dismissing me,” he appealed. “I am beyond pardon, I know, yet some excuse did exist. The second time was not all my fault; I saw no better way, and you were ill. The doctor could tell you so, if he would.”

“He has. I understand that. It is the other time, the first.” She bit her soft lip, steadying its quiver. “I was so stupid—no doubt you laughed.”

“Laughed!” echoed Bertie Lacy. “Laughed!”

There was little outward resemblance between the Bertie Lacy of the stage and this keenly earnest man. But for one instant Philippa encountered the straight gaze of his unchanged gray eyes, and at once a hundred delicate bonds of former friendliness and confidence were renewed. She turned to a chair and sat down, clasping her hands in her lap.

“If you did not,” she reproached unsteadily, “why did you let me go on? Why did you ever come to meet me, like that?”

He drew a quick breath.

“If you would believe I meant no wrong! Miss Howard, if you could believe that! When your note was brought to me that night at the theater, I thought it was sent in sport. One of my friends had been planning a masquerade dance, and I fancied your invitation was his jesting way of summoning me to it in costume. Instead of him, I found you.”

“You could have told me then.”

“On the crowded sidewalk, among fifty people who would have reveled in repeating the story? I tried to draw back; you may remember I hesitated. If your aunt had not been with you, I should have refused. But I was afraid of humiliating you. I meant to speak in your car, but there, too, opportunity seemed to fail. You—I never had seen anyone like you. I thought of your mortification; perhaps I thought of my own and shrank from confessing myself a man in that farcical dress. You cannot know how wonderful you looked! And every instant it grew harder to speak.”

She bent her small head still lower, looking down at her own clasped fingers. Lacy pushed back the heavy brown hair from his forehead and remained silent for a moment.

“When you said that you were lonely and dreaded closing your birthday alone,” he resumed, his voice subdued, “I committed my great fault. Even then, in the first quarter-hour, your happiness seemed to me most important of all things. I determined not to tell you, but to give you that one evening of harmless gaiety and then to step out of your life and knowledge. How could I foresee what happened?”

“You will not pardon me! Lacy exclaimed suddenly and passionately. “Very well, I will go. At least, I have hurt only myself; I can remember that. Your life will go on unchanged, since only your doctor knows of our meeting, and he must be silent. My life—I have left the stage; if any future success comes to me, it will come free from ridicule. In spite of all absurd disguise, you did like Bertie Lacy, Miss Howard. Given an equal chance with the men of your circle, I might have made our comedy a drama.”

He turned and was at the door before she answered.

“Perhaps you have,” murmured Philippa.

“You do not know,” he protested. “Let me go before I lose honesty to you. I am not an actor or artist—I am a public plaything, a farceur. What can Bertie Lacy have to say to Miss Howard?”

Her self-possession strengthened as his failed.

“He doesn’t tell me,” she returned.

“I think,” he said, quietly and steadily, “that if I go now, I will be almost fit to have stayed. I love you; what little you feel for me is partly glamour of the footlights, partly pity. There will be someone else, someone very different from me—”

“Oh, no!” denied Philippa, quite innocently.

His composure crumpled abruptly and utterly. Quite unexpectedly they were in each other’s arms.

“If you will wait two years—” Lacy surrendered incoherently. “It is wrong—I am wrong in letting you—I am selfish! But if you will wait two years, I will earn something, some fame or money or success. You have so much, my dear!”

“Two—years?”

“Is it too much to ask? Too long?”

As Lacy left the house he met Dr. Strong. As the two men recognized each other, a great scarlet touring car swung to a halt beside the curb and a chorus of jovial voices called greeting and invitation.

The door opened. Both men turned. Straight down to Lacy Philippa ran, her face brilliant.

“Bertie, dear!” she panted breathlessly, and clasped both hands over his arm, smiling up at him.

The witnesses were dumb, staring at the two in stunned amazement. Bertie Lacy went white, his comprehension reeling before the sweet treachery he alone could read. But before question could take form, he sharply recovered himself and took the only course.

“Philippa, out in this wind!” he reproached. He caught her hand. “Dr. Strong, you and my fiancée, Miss Howard, are old friends, of course.” He bowed to the automobile party, then took Philippa indoors.

“I must tell you that I did not plan it,” she cried—“I mean not at first. But the house was so empty when you went out—and two years seemed such a long time.”