and excitedly endure the conflicting emotions of the moment.  And Alf did not speak, but hurried her along as fast as his strong arm could secure her compliance with his own pace; and they walked through the night-ridden streets and full into the blaze of the theatre entrance without any words at all.  Then, when the staring vehemence of the electric lights whitened and shadowed her face, Emmy drew away, casting down her eyes, alarmed at the disclosures which the brilliance might devastatingly make.  She slipped from his arm, and stood rather forlornly while Alf fished in his pockets for the tickets.  With docility she followed him, thrilled when he stepped aside in passing the commissionaire and took her arm.  Together they went up the stairs, the heavy carpets with their drugget covers silencing every step, the gilded mirrors throwing their reflections backwards and forwards until the stairs seemed peopled with hosts of Emmys and Alfs.  As they drew near the closed doors of the circle the hush filling the staircases and vestibules of the theatre was intensified.  An aproned attendant seemed to Emmy’s sensitiveness to look them up and down and superciliously to disapprove them.  She moved with indignation.  A dull murmur, as of single voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant:  and when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato.  Those of the audience who were sitting near the doors turned angrily and with curiosity to view the new-comers; and the voice that Emmy had distinguished went more stridently on, with a strong American accent.  In a flurry she found and crept into her seat, trying to understand the play, to touch Alf, to remove her hat, to discipline her excitements.  And the staccato voice went on and on, detailing a plan of some sort which she could not understand because they had missed the first five minutes of the play.  Emmy could not tell that the actor was only pretending to be an American; she could not understand why, having spoken twenty words, he must take six paces farther from the footlights until he had spoken thirteen more; but she could and did feel most overwhelmingly exuberant at being as it were alone in that half-silent multitude, sitting beside Alf, their arms touching, her head whirling, her heart beating, and a wholly exquisite warmth flushing her cheeks.

ii

The first interval found the play well advanced.  A robbery had been planned—­for it was a “crook” play—­and the heroine had already received wild-eyed the advances of a fur-coated millionaire.  When the lights of the theatre popped up, and members of the orchestra began once more unmercifully to tune their instruments, it was possible to look round at the not especially large audience.  But in whichever direction Emmy looked she was always brought back as by a magnet to Alf, who sat ruminantly