She had come noiselessly in at the glass doorway behind him, and was standing there, laughing, a picture of fresh and demure beauty, despite the varied colours in hat and waist and gown and gloves.

“I had to see you!” said Julia, in a rush.  “And nobody answered your telephone—­there’s a rehearsal of that play at the theatre to-day, so I can’t meet you—­and the janitor let me in—–­”

Mark found her incoherence delicious; her being here, in his own familiar stamping-ground, one of the thrilling and exciting episodes of his life.  He could have shouted—­have danced for pure joy as he jumped up to welcome her.  Julia declared that she had to “fly,” but Mark insisted—­and she found his insistence curiously pleasant—­upon showing her about, leading her from office to office, beaming at her whenever their eyes met.  And he must play her the little Schumann, he said, but no—­for that Julia positively would not wait; she jerked him by one hand toward the door.  Mark had his second kiss before they emerged laughing and radiant into the gaiety of Kearney Street on a Saturday afternoon.

And Julia was not late for her rehearsal, or, if late, she was at least earlier by a full quarter hour than the rest of the caste.  She took an orchestra seat in the empty auditorium at the doorkeeper’s suggestion, and yawned, and stared at the coatless back of a man who was tuning the orchestra piano.

Presently two distinguished looking girls, beautifully dressed, came in, and sat down near her in a rather uncertain way, and began to laugh and talk in low tones.  Neither cast a glance at Julia, who promptly decided that they were hateful snobs, and began to regard them with burning resentment.  They had been there only a few moments when two young men sauntered down the aisle, unmistakably gentlemen, and genuine enough to express their enjoyment of this glimpse of a theatre between performances.  Two of them carried little paper copies of “The Amazons,” so Julia knew them for fellow-performers.

Then a third young woman came in and walked down the aisle as the others had done.  This was an extremely pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, with dark hair and dark bright eyes, and a very fresh bright colour.  Her gown was plain but beautifully fitting, and her wide hat was crowned with a single long ostrich plume.  She peered at the young men.

“Hello, Bobby—­hello, Gray!” she said gayly, and then, catching sight of the two other girls across the aisle, she added:  “Oh, hello, Helen—­how do you do, Miss Carson?  Come over here and meet Mr. Sumner and Mr. Babcock!”

Babel ensued.  Three or four waiting young people said, “Oh, Barbara!” in tones of great delight, and the fourth no less eagerly substituted, “Oh, Miss Toland!”

“How long have you poor, long-suffering catfish been waiting here?” demanded Miss Barbara Toland, with a sort of easy sweetness that Julia found instantly enviable.  “Why, we’re all out in the foyer—­Mother’s here, chaperoning away like mad, and nearly all the others!  And”—­she whisked a little gold watch into sight—­“my dears, it’s twenty minutes to four!”