At the Dudleys' studio I forgot Rose for a little while. It was a great dark room with bright colors and dim lamps. Mrs. Dudley had on a dress of leopard skins, with a pointed crown on her head. There were twenty or more there, and among them "Baddy" Dudley. From the minute I came in the room he came and sat beside me. He was big and ugly, but there was something about him that made you forget all the other men in the room. It was a wonderful dinner. When coffee came, the lights flashed up, a curtain was lifted, and Mrs. Dudley danced. The lights rose and fell as she danced, and with them the music. Every one broke into a low humming with the music. Then she sank down, and the lights went out, and we sat in the dark until she came back to dance again. "I shall never be happy," said Mr. Dudley as we sat so, "until I see you dance, in a costume which I shall design for you." "Will you dance with me?" I asked him. That was the most fun--that I could think of things to say, just the way Lena Curtsy used to--only now they were never the kind that made anybody look shocked. "Make the appointment in the Fiji Islands or in Fez," he said; "and there I will be." Mr. Gerald came and sat down beside me. "Oh, very well, Massy--to the knife," says Mr. Dudley. It was half after nine when we left for the opera. The second act had begun, which seemed to me a wicked waste of tickets. But even then Mr. Gerald had no intention of listening. He sat beside me and talked. "Cosma," he said, "I'm about ten times as miserable as usual to-night. Can't you say something." I said, "Tell me: Is that what they call a minor? Because I want those for my heaven." "I want you for my heaven," Mr. Gerald observed. "Dear, I'm terribly in earnest. Don't make me run a race with that bally ass." "Don't race," I said. "Listen." "I am listening," said Gerald, "to hear what you will say." All at once it flashed over me: Cosma Wakely, from a farm near Katytown! Here I was, loving my new life and longing to keep it up. "You're right where you belong," he went on, "looking just as you look now. But you do need me, you know, to complete the picture." It was true. I did belong where I was. By a miracle I had got there. Why was I hesitating to stay? If it had been Lena Curtsy, or Rose, I couldn't imagine them feeling as if all this belonged to them. It was true. There must be these distinctions. Why should I not accept what had come? And then help the girls--help Father and Mother. Think of the good I could do as Gerald's wife.... The music died, just like something alive. The curtain went down. And in the midst of all the applause, and the silly bowing on the stage, and the chatter in the box, I looked in the box next to ours. And there sat John Ember. CHAPTER X