Jimmie seemed to have dropped the years from him.  He was very confident of the success of his play.  “It can’t fail,” he said, “with Ursula to make it sure—­”

I wondered whether it was Ursula or Elise who had made it sure.  Could he ever have written it if Elise had not kept him at it?  Yet she had stolen his youth!

And now Ursula was giving his youth back to him!  As I saw the cock of his head, heard the ring of his gay laughter, I felt that it might be so.  And suddenly I knew that I didn’t want Jimmie to be young again.  Not if he had to take his youth from the hands of Ursula Simms!

There were many toasts before the supper ended—­and the last one Jimmie drank “To Ursula”!  As he stood up to propose it, his glasses dangled from their ribbon, his shoulders were squared.  In the soft and shaded light we were spared the gray in his hair—­it was the old Jimmie, gay and gallant!

“To Ursula!” he said, and the words sparkled.  “To Ursula!”

I looked at Elise.  She might have been the ghost of the woman who had flamed in the old house in Albemarle.  In her white and pearls she was shadowy, unsubstantial, almost spectral, but she raised her glass.  “To Ursula!” she said.

All the way home on the train Duncan and I talked about it.  We were scared to death.  “Oh, he mustn’t, he must not,” I kept saying, and Duncan snorted.

“He’s a young fool.  She’s not the woman for him—­”

“Neither of them is the woman,” I said, “but Elise has made him—­”

“No man was ever held by gratitude.”

“He’d hate Ursula in a year.”

“He thinks he’d live—­”

“And lose his soul—­”

* * * * *

Jimmie’s play opened to a crowded house.  There had been extensive advertising, and Ursula had a great following.

Elise and Duncan and I had seats in an upper box.  Elise sat where she was hidden by the curtains.  Jimmie came and went unseen by the audience.  Between acts he was behind the scenes.  Elise had little to say.  Once she reached over and laid her hand on mine.

“I—­I think I’m frightened,” she said, with a catch of her breath.

“It can’t fail, my dear—­”

“No, of course.  But it’s very different from what I expected.”

“What is different?”

“Success.”

As the great scene came closer, I seemed to hold my breath.  I was so afraid that the audience might not see it as we had seen it at rehearsal.  But they did see it, and it was a stupendous thing to sit there and watch the crowd, and know that Jimmie’s genius was making its heart beat fast and faster.  When Ursula in her purple cloak and pheasant’s feather spoke her lines at the end of the third act, “I shall love you for a million years,” the house went wild.  Men and women who had never loved for a moment roared for this woman who had made them think they could love until eternity.  They wanted her back and they got her.  They wanted Jimmie and they got him.  Ursula made a speech; Jimmie made a speech.  They came out for uncounted curtain-calls, hand-in-hand.  The play was a success!