beside her.  To Alf’s sidelong eye Emmy was looking surprisingly lovely.  The tired air and the slightly peevish mouth to which he was accustomed had given place to the flush and sparkle of an excited girl.  Alf was aware of surprise.  He blinked.  He saw the lines smoothed away from round her mouth—­the lines of weariness and dissatisfaction,—­and was tempted by the softness of her cheek.  As he looked quickly off again he thought how full Jenny would have been of comment upon the play, how he would have sat grinning with precious enjoyment at her merciless gibes during the whole of the interval.  He had the sense of Jenny as all movement, as flashing and drawing him into quagmires of sensation, like a will-o’-the-wisp.  Emmy was not like that.  She sat tremulously smiling, humble before him, diffident, flattering.  She was intelligent:  that was it.  Intelligent was the word.  Not lively, but restful.  Critically he regarded her.  Rather a nice girl, Emmy....

Alf roused himself, and looked around.

“Here, miss!” he called; and “S-s-s-s” when she did not hear him.  It was his way of summoning an attendant or a waitress.  “S-s-s-s.”  The attendant brought chocolates, which Alf handed rather magnificently to his companion.  He plunged into his pockets—­in his rough-and-ready, muscular way—­for the money, leaning far over the next seat, which was unoccupied.  “Like some lemon?” he said to Emmy.  Together they inspected the box of chocolates, which contained much imitation-lace paper and a few sweets.  “Not half a sell,” grumbled Alf to himself, thinking of the shilling he had paid; but he looked with gratification at Emmy’s face as she enjoyingly ate the chocolates.  As her excitement a little strained her nervous endurance Emmy began to pale under the eyes; her eyes seemed to grow larger; she lost the first air of sparkle, but she became more pathetic.  “Poor little thing,” thought Alf, feeling masculine.  “Poor little thing:  she’s tired.  Poor little thing.”

iii

In the middle of this hot, excitedly-talking audience, they seemed to bask as in a warm pool of brilliant light.  The brilliants in the dome of the theatre intensified all the shadows, heightened all the smiles, illumined all the silken blouses and silver bangles, the flashing eyes, the general air of fete.

“All right?” Alf inquired protectively.  Emmy looked in gratitude towards him.

“Lovely,” she said.  “Have another?”

“I meant you,” he persisted.  “Yourself, I mean.”  Emmy smiled, so happily that nobody could have been unmoved at the knowledge of having given such pleasure.

“Oh, grand!” Emmy said.  Then her eyes contracted.  Memory came to her.  The angry scene that had passed earlier returned to her mind, hurting her, and injuring her happiness.  Alf hurried to engage her attention, to distract her from thoughts that had in them such discomfort as she so quickly showed.

“Like the play?  I didn’t quite follow what it was this old general had done to him.  Did you?”