I looked at Viola curiously, and wondered how she felt towards this man who was so obviously in love with her.  Whether it moved her at all to see those dark eyes fill with fire as she smiled at him, to know that the whole of this engaging personality was hers if she chose to stretch out her hand and claim it.

The dinner passed off well, thanks principally to the inexhaustible tide of good spirits and fun that flowed from Lawton.  We took a couple of hansoms afterwards and arrived at the theatre in good time.

The “Lily of Canton” went smoothly from beginning to end.  The crowded house laughed and applauded the whole time.  In fact, the humour and fun of Lawton’s libretto were irresistible, and the beautiful airs that Viola’s fancy had woven in and out to carry the wit of Lawton’s sparkling lines enchanted the audience.

At the end there were calls for both of them to appear before the curtain, and Viola left the box with him, radiant and smiling.  When they both appeared on the stage the enthusiasm was unbounded.  Viola was in white, and her delicate, rose-like fairness delighted the audience, and the women clapped Lawton with good-will.  Handsome, easy, dignified, graceful, and debonair as usual, he smiled and bowed his acknowledgments over and over again beside Viola, into whose face came the wrapt, glad look that her music always gave, replacing the expression of pain she had worn now for so many weeks.

I sat in our box watching her, with sore, jealous feelings rising up like mists over the pride I had in my possession.  As the whole scene and her triumph stirred and roused my passion for her, some voice seemed interrogating me—­“Is she and her love not enough for you?  Why do you wear thin and fray the delicious tie between you?”

They were both up again in the box beside me, directly surrounded by congratulating friends; and then Lawton gathered together his party and we all filed off in a stream of hansoms to the supper that he was giving in Viola’s honour.  It was already daylight before we reached home.

The next evening I had to attend an artists’ dinner.  It was for men only, so that Viola was not invited.  I spent a very busy morning and afternoon in the studio.  The Bacchante was almost finished, and I had made up my mind to dismiss Veronica as soon as I was sure I was satisfied with the picture and did not need her again.  Full of this resolve, I was perhaps a little more careless than usual, less on my guard, and when at the end Veronica came to kiss me, I returned her caress with more warmth than I was accustomed to do.  It did not really matter, I thought; the girl would be gone in a day or two and I should have no more to do with her.

Feeling rather pleased with myself for having taken the decided resolution to dismiss her in order to please Viola I went downstairs, and was rather vexed when I met her to see her looking particularly white and ill.  She had seemed fairly well at luncheon, and I could not shake off the extraordinary idea that my conduct with Veronica through the afternoon was in some way connected with her pallor and expression now.