Beth Norvell, neatly gowned for the street, her own more sedate performance already concluded, had paused for a single curious instant in the shadow of the wings, and remained looking out upon that scarlet figure, flitting here and there like some tropical bird, through the gaudy glare of the stage.  Winston, waiting patiently for twenty minutes amid the denser gloom just inside the stage door, watched the young girl’s unconsciously interested face, wondering alike at both himself and her.  This entire adventure remained an unsolved problem to his mystified mind—­how it was she yet continued to retain his interest; why it was he could never wholly succeed in divorcing her from his life.  He endeavored now to imagine her a mere ordinary woman of the stage, whom he might idly flirt with to-night, and quite as easily forget to-morrow.  Yet from some cause the mind failed to respond to such suggestion.  There was something within the calm, womanly face as revealed beneath the reflection of garish light, something in the very poise of the slender figure bending slightly forward in aroused enthusiasm, which compelled his respect, aroused his admiration.  She was not a common woman, and he could not succeed in blinding himself to that fact.  Even the garish, cheap environments, the glitter and tinsel, the noise and brutality, had utterly failed to tarnish Beth Norvell.  She stood forth different, distinct, a perfectly developed flower, rarely beautiful, although blooming in muck that was overgrown with noxious weeds.  Winston remained clearly conscious that some peculiar essence of her native character had mysteriously perfumed the whole place—­it glorified her slight bit of stage work, and had already indelibly impressed itself upon those rough, boisterous Western spirits out in front.  Before her parting lips uttered a line she had thoroughly mastered them, the innate purity of her perfected womanhood, the evident innocence of her purpose, shielding her against all indecency and insult.  The ribald scoffing, the insolent shuffling of feet, the half-drunken uneasiness, ceased as if by magic; and as her simple act proceeded, the stillness out in front became positively solemn, the startled faces picturing an awakening to higher things.  It was a triumph far exceeding the noisy outburst that greeted the Mexican—­a moral victory over unrestrained lawlessness won simply by true womanliness, unaided and alone.  That earlier scene had brought to Winston a deeper realization of this girl’s genius, a fresher appreciation of the true worth of her esteem.  No struggle of heart or head could ever again lower her in his secret thought to the common level.

The swinging strains of the dancer’s accompaniment concluded with a blare of noisy triumph, the mad enthusiasts out in front wildly shouting her name above the frantic din of applause, while, flushed and panting, the agile Mexican dancer swept into the darkened wings like a scarlet bird.