Hilda began to put on her gloves.  The left one gaped at two finger-ends; she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l’Opera.

“Not yet!” Alicia cried.

“Thanks, I must.  To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have to dress the stage for the first act before six o’clock.  And after pulling all that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two in bed.”

“You!  But it’s monstrous.  Is there nobody else?”

“I wouldn’t let anybody else,” Hilda laughed.  “Don’t forget, please, that we are only strolling players, odds and ends of people, mostly from the Antipodes.  Don’t confound our manners and customs with anything you’ve heard about the Lyceum.  Good-bye.  It has been charming.  Good-bye, Mr. Arnold.”

But Alicia held her hand.  “The papers say it is to be The Offence of Galilee, after all,” she said.

“Yes.  Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we’ve found a pretty fair local Judas—­amateur.  We couldn’t possibly put it on without Mr. Bradley.  He takes the part of”—­Hilda glanced at the hem of the listening priestly robe—­“of the chief character, you know.”

“That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn’t it?” Arnold asked; “Leslie Patullo’s play?  I knew him at Oxford.  I can’t imagine—­he’s a queer chap to be writing things like that.”

“It works out better than you—­than one might suppose,” Hilda returned, moving toward the door.  “Some of the situations are really almost novel, in spite of all your centuries of preaching.”  She sent a disarming smile with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most effective hesitations, one hand holding back the portiere.

“And next week?” cried Alicia.

“Oh, next week we do L’Amourette de Giselle—­Frank Golding’s re-vamp.  Good-bye!  Good-bye!”

“I wonder very much what Patullo has done with The Offence of Galilee,” Arnold said, after she had gone.

“Come and see, Stephen.  We have a box, and there will be heaps of room.  It’s—­suitable, isn’t it?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Then dine with us—­the Yardleys are coming—­and go on.  Why not?”

“Thanks, very much indeed.  It is sure to reward one.  I think I shall be able to give myself that pleasure.”

Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, became a cup of tea; and his talk, while he staid, seemed to suffer less from the limitations of his Order than it usually did.  He was fluent and direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers, that his glance at the world had still a speculation in it; and when he went away, he left Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring a vague inward corollary upon her day—­

“It pays!  It pays!”

CHAPTER V.