“And are they to be married soon?”

“I don’t know exactly; but it has been going on for years, and we all look upon it as a settled thing.  She is always about with his mother.”

“Is that Lord Bracondale’s mother—­the lady with the coronet of plaits and the huge white aigrette with the diamond drops in it?” Theodora asked.  Her voice was schooled, and had no special tones in it.  But oh, how she was thrilling with interest and excitement underneath!

“Yes, that is Lady Bracondale.  She is quite a type; always dresses in that old-fashioned way, and won’t know a soul who is not of her own set.  She is a cousin of one of my husband’s aunts.  I must introduce you to her.”

“She looks pretty haughty,” announced Josiah Brown.  “I should not care to tread on her toes much.”  And then he remembered he had seen her years ago driving through the little town of Bracondale.

Theodora asked no more questions.  She kept her eyes fixed on the stage, but she knew Hector had raised his glasses now and was scanning the box, and had probably seen her.

What ought it to matter to her that he should be going to marry Miss Winmarleigh?  He could be nothing to her—­only—­only—­but perhaps it was not true.  This woman, Mrs. Devlyn, whom she began to feel she should dislike very much, had said it was looked upon as settled, not that it was a fact.  How could a man be going to marry one woman and make desperate love to another at the same time?  It was impossible—­and yet—­she would not look in any case.  She would not once raise her eyes that way.

And so in these two boxes green jealousy held sway, and while Hector glared across at Theodora she smiled at Delaval Stirling, and spoke softly of the music and the voices, though her heart was torn with pain.

“Do you see Hector Bracondale is back again, Delaval?” Mrs. Devlyn said.  “Do you know why he stayed in Paris so long?  I heard—­” And she whispered low, so that Theodora only caught the name “Esclarmonde de Chartres” and their modulated mocking laughter.

How they jarred upon her!  How she felt she should hate London among all these people whose ways she did not know!  She turned a little, and Josiah’s vulgar familiar face seemed a relief to her, and her tender eyes melted in kindliness as she looked at him.

“You are very pale to-night, my love,” he said.  “Would you like to go home?”

But this she would not agree to, and pulled herself together and tried to talk gayly when the curtain went down.

And Hector blamed his own folly for having come up to this box at all.  Here he must be glued certainly for a few moments; now that they could talk, politeness could not permit him to fly off at once.

“The house is very full,” Miss Winmarleigh said—­it was a remark she always made on big nights—­“and yet hardly any new faces about.”

“Yes,” said Hector.

“Does it compare with the Opera-House in Paris, Hector?” Miss Winmarleigh hardly ever went abroad.