“Are you all right now?” asked Joseph.  “I wish I’d brought a bottle of smelling-salts.  Will you come out and get something to drink—­water —­brandy?  No?  Sure you’re all right?  Did you see Sir Stephen?  I wonder who the lady is beside him?  Some swell or other, I’ll be bound.  The other man must be Sir Stephen’s son, for he’s like him.  He’s almost as great a personage as Sir Stephen himself; you see his name amongst those of people of the highest rank in the fashionable columns in the newspapers.  The lady’s got beautiful ’air, hasn’t she?” he went on, after a pause.  “Not that I admire that colour myself; I’m gone on black ’air.”  He glanced insinuatingly at Ida’s.

When the interval expired, Sir Stephen and Stafford resumed their seat, and, with a sigh of relief, Ida tried to listen to the music; but she could hear Stafford’s voice through it, and was obliged to shut her eyes that she might not see him.  Instinctively, and from Jessie’s description, she knew that the beautiful girl, with the complexion of a lily and the wealth of bronze-gold hair, was Maude Falconer.  Why was she with Sir Stephen and Stafford?  Was it, indeed, true that they were engaged?  Up to the present moment she had cherished a doubt; but now it seemed impossible to doubt any longer.  For how many minutes, hours, years would she have to sit with those two before her, her heart racked with the pangs of jealousy, with the memory of happier days, with the ghastly fact that he had gone from her life forever, and that she was sitting there a spectator of his faithlessness.  Every song seemed to mock her wretchedness, and she had to battle with the mad desire to spring to her feet and cry aloud.

In a kind of dream she heard the strains of the national anthem, and saw Stafford rise with the rest of the audience, and watched him as he drew the costly cloak round Maude Falconer’s white shoulders; in a dream allowed Joseph to draw her arm through his and lead her down the crowded staircase into the open air.

“Splendid concert!” he said, triumphantly.  “But you look tired, Ida.  We’ll have a cab to the station.  But let’s wait a minute and see the prince come out.”

They stood in the crowd which had formed to stare at his royal highness; and as luck would have it, Stafford, with Maude Falconer on his arm, and followed by Sir Stephen, passed in front of them, and so close that Ida shrank back in terror lest Stafford should see her.  Some of the crowd, some Stock Exchange people probably, recognised Sir Stephen, and spoke his name aloud, and a cheer arose.  He bowed and smiled and shook his head in a deprecatory way, and Ida saw Stafford’s face darken with a frown, as if he were ashamed of the publicity, as he hurried Maude Falconer to the carriage.  A moment or two after, the prince appeared, there was an excited and enthusiastic burst of cheering; and at last Joseph forced his way out of the crowd and found a cab.