Through another interval they sat with silent embarrassment, the irreplaceable chocolates, which had earlier been consumed, having served their turn as a means of devouring attention.  Alf was tempted to fly to the bar for a drink and composure, but he did not like to leave Emmy; and he could not think of anything which could safely be said to her in the middle of this gathering of hot and radiant persons.  “To speak” in such uproar meant “to shout.”  He felt that every word he uttered would go echoing in rolls and rolls of sound out among the multitude.  They were not familiar enough to make that a matter of indifference to him.  He was in the stage of secretiveness.  And Emmy, after trying once or twice to open various small topics, had fallen back upon her own thoughts, and could invent nothing to talk about until the difficulties that lay between them had been removed.  Her brow contracted.  She moved her shoulders, or sat pressed reservedly against the back of her seat.  Her voice, whenever she did not immediately hear some word fall from Alf, became sharp and self-conscious—­almost “managing.”

It was a relief to both of them, and in both the tension of sincere feeling had perceptibly slackened, when the ignored orchestra gave way before the rising curtain.  Again the two drew together in the darkness, as all other couples were doing, comforted by proximity, and even by the unacknowledged mutual pleasure of it; again they watched the extraordinary happenings upon the stage.  The fur coat was much used, cigarettes were lighted and flung away with prodigal recklessness, pistols were revealed—­one of them was even fired into the air;—­and jumping, trickling music heightened the effects of a number of strong speeches about love, and incorruptibility, and womanhood....  The climax was reached.  In the middle of the climax, while yet the lover wooed and the villain died, the audience began to rustle, preparatory to going home.  Even Emmy was influenced to the extent of discovering and beginning to adjust her hat.  It was while she was pinning it, with her elbows raised, that the curtain fell.  Both Emmy and Alf rose in the immediately successive re-illumination of the theatre; and Emmy looked so pretty with her arms up, and with the new hat so coquettishly askew upon her head, and with a long hatpin between her teeth, that Alf could not resist the impulse to put his arm affectionately round her in leading the way out.

v

And then, once in the street, he made no scruple about taking Emmy’s arm within the crook of his as they moved from the staring whiteness of the theatre lamps out into the calmer moonshine.  It was eleven o’clock.  The night was fine, and the moon rode high above amid the twinkling stars.  When Alf looked at Emmy’s face it was transfigured in this beautiful light, and he drew her gently from the direct way back to the little house.

“Don’t let’s go straight back,” he said.  “Stroll u’ll do us good.”