Roselle was on the stage, in the beauty chorus, looking magnificent, and her eyes were sweeping the stalls.  They paused here and there in their saucy habit, lingering upon more than one man with one of her tiny inscrutable smiles winging a message, but their search continued until at last she had found Osborn Kerr sitting on the lefthand side in the third row.  He had scribbled on the card which accompanied his flowers, “Look for me to-night,” and when her look met his, he had a sudden thrill of pleasure.  Watching her eyes sweeping here and there, it had been exciting to wait for the moment when they should fall on him.  After he had signalled back a discreet smile in answer, he put up his glasses and looked at her eagerly.

Her beauty returned to his senses like a familiar thing; he had admired the way her hair grew from her temples, and to-night it was dressed to show the unusual charm; her ankles had always been wonderfully slim, and to-night they looked finer than ever atop of twinkly little Court shoes in a vivid green hue; her eyes had that deep, still look which expressed her inanity, while having the result of concealing it.

During the first interval he scribbled a note to her, and sent it round with an imperative request for an answer.  The note asked: 

“My dear Roselle, come out to supper?  And shall I wait for you at the stage door?—­O.K.”

And her reply, in her big, silly back-hand writing, said laconically: 

“Right.  I’ll be out at eleven.—­R.D.”

Eleven found him waiting by the stage-door entrance, and she did not keep him long.  Soon she came, big and brilliant, out from the gloomy gully, in the inevitable fur-coat which he remembered so well, but which had begun now to look battered, and the velvet hat shoved on cheekily, like a man’s wideawake.  Her eyes and her teeth acclaimed him in a kindred smile, for which he felt the warmer.

“Hallo, dear old thing!” she greeted him.  “I thought you were lost.”

He held her hand, smiling.  “This is fine!” he said.  “Where shall we go?”

“Romano’s.”

“Romano’s let it be.  I’ve a cab here, waiting.”  He handed her in, jumped in after her, and slammed the door, with a feeling that for an hour at least he had left his troubles outside.

“How are you?” he asked.  “What have you been doing since I saw you last?  And didn’t you ever expect to see me again?”

Her eyes, in the dimness, looked very deep.

“I knew I should,” she answered murmurously.

The inimitable atmosphere of Romano’s loosened his tongue.  After she had ordered supper, with every whit of the appetite and extravagance which he remembered as her chief characteristic, next to her beauty, and after each had been stimulated by a cocktail, he was conscious that he wanted to confide in her, not so much because she was Roselle, but because she was a woman, would look soft and listen prettily.  He wanted stroking gently, patting on the back, and reassuring about himself.