"Poor little fool!" she murmured, contemptuously now, for she recalled that for a time in her infatuation she had felt how ineffably superior was her own romantic, secret, self-sacrificing love to the dull, commonplace, strictly legalized affection of Dorothy and Leslie. But since then--oh, since then! she had had time to wake from her beautiful dream, she had had time to think and to suffer. She knew now that the beautiful temple of love must stand on a foundation of legality, or it would tremble dangerously under every wind that blew! She no longer found anything to deride in the word "propriety," since she had come in bitterness of spirit to realize its meaning: "What ought to be--what should be." And dear Dorothy's life was what it should be, and she had peace and security and had never known humiliation. "Humiliation!" Sybil twisted her hands and gasped aloud, "God! oh, God!" at the recollections that came to her. For Stewart Thrall's wife had kept her word and stood at his side, and shared his popularity, and applauded him from her box, and called him "dear" before all men on all possible occasions. And suspecting that Sunday evenings might not be spent with "the boys," she had inaugurated small "at homes," to give her dear Stewart a chance to gather his valued friends about him in his own home. And he who had never disregarded public opinion felt compelled to dance attendance upon his wife in name, who held him to his bond for her vanity and convenience. The trite endearments necessity forced from his lips were torture to Sybil when she chanced to hear them; and oh, the agony of a woman, who is secretly loved, when she sees the man who is hers--for whom she has paid with her pride and honor and self-respect--held to the side of another woman, by her legitimate rights! Just as maddening pain will sometimes drive a sufferer to press upon the torturing wound, so Sybil would cry to herself: "She is his true wife, and I am a--caprice!" It was not true, she knew it was not true, yet a strange necessity for self-torture forced her to repeat the cruel words, as it forced her often to remind Stewart that it was time for him to hasten to some appointment, to drive or to lunch with Mrs. Thrall, who much enjoyed displaying publicly the devotion of her actor-husband. And once, when Sybil had longed to attend a sacred concert that offered her an only opportunity to hear a certain great singer, she had been forced either to accept Roberts's escort or remain at home, because Mr. Thrall learned at the last moment that Lettice had invited a large party, who were to return afterward and sup with them in the informal way "dear Stewart so enjoys." And, having swiftly decided in favor of a long evening of loneliness at home, taking a bitter pleasure in her own suffering, she had tried to hasten his departure, saying: "A man should never keep his wife waiting."