laughter followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded the place. Wingrave's lip curled."My lack of kinship with my fellows," he remarked, "is exceedingly well defined just now. I agree with the one philosopher who declared that 'eating and drinking are functions which are better performed in private.'"

The two men went on to a theater. The play was a society trifle--a thing of the moment. Wingrave listened gravely, without a smile or any particular sign of interest. At the end of the second act, he turned towards his companion.

"The lady in the box opposite," he remarked, "desires to attract your attention."

Aynesworth looked up and recognized Lady Ruth. She was fanning herself languidly, but her eyes were fixed upon the two men. She leaned a little forward, and her gesture was unmistakable.

Aynesworth rose to his feet a little doubtfully.

"You had better go," Wingrave said. "Present my compliments and excuses. I feel that a meeting now would amount to an anti-climax."

Aynesworth made his way upstairs. Lady Ruth was alone, and he noticed that she had withdrawn to a chair where she was invisible to the house. Even Aynesworth himself could not see her face clearly at first, for she had chosen the darkest corner of the box. He gathered an impression of a gleaming white neck and bosom rising and falling rather more quickly than was natural, eyes which shone softly through the gloom, and the perfume of white roses, a great cluster of which lay upon the box ledge.

Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.

"That is--Sir Wingrave with you?"

"Yes!" Aynesworth answered. "It was he who saw you first!"

She seemed to catch her breath. Her voice was still tremulous.

"He is changed," she said. "I should not have recognized him."

"They were the best ten years of his life," Aynesworth answered. "Think of how and in what surroundings he has been compelled to live. No wonder that he has had the humanity hammered out of him."

She shivered a little.

"Is he always like this?" she asked. "I have watched him. He never smiles. He looks as hard as fate itself."

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