In this character she now told a string of those funny anecdotes which Americans love to swap. She sang divers songs, pitched among her big, velvety chest tones: "Children, Keep in de Middle ob de Road," "Fluey, Fluey," "Come, Ride dat Golden Mule." With the clumsy nimbleness and innocent love of play of a Newfoundland pup, she flung out her enormous feet in the dance. The crimson curtains drew together upon her retreat amid unaffected applause. Recalled, she gave the encore prepared for such an event. Recalled over and over, like singers of topical songs, to hear what she would say next, Aurora, a little off her head with the new wine of glory, exhausted her bag of parlor tricks to satisfy an audience so kind. Then it was that she made her mistake. Recalled still again, she invented on the spot one last thing to do. She recited a poem indelibly learned at public school, giving it first as a newly landed Jewish pupil would pronounce it, then a small Irishman, then a small Italian, finally an English child. To add the latter was her mistake, because her caricature of the English speech was very special. The sound of it started an idea buzzing in the head of one of her audience--Charlie Hunt, who sat well in front, and in applauding raised his hands above the level of his head so that actors and audience alike might be encouraged by seeing that he gave the patronage of his approval. He did not immediately connect Aurora's English with a rankling remembered episode, but the thing was burrowing in his subconsciousness, and an arrow of light before long pierced his brain. He reconsidered the conclusion upon which he had rested with regard to the black crow who at the _veglione_ had put to him an impertinent question. Could it be that not the particular lady whom he had fixed upon in his mind, as being fond of Landini, consequently jealous of Mrs. Hawthorne, had by it expressed her spite, but that--? He saw in a flash a different possibility. When the show was over and the performers had issued from the dressing-rooms in the clothes of saner moments, Charlie Hunt approached Mrs. Hawthorne, who, flushed with excitement, was looking almost too much like an American Beauty rose. He paid his compliments in a tone tinged with irony, all the while watching her with a penetrating, inquiring, ironical eye. But the irony was wasted. She was too pleasantly engrossed to perceive it. "Has anybody here seen Mr. Fane?" she asked after a time, when her glances had vainly sought him in every corner. Estelle told her that she had not set eyes on him the whole evening; and, which was more conclusive, little Lily Foss said he had not been there. CHAPTER XV Aurora, unable to see beyond the footlights, had never dreamed but Gerald was among the audience. Her capers had at moments been definitely directed at him. Discovering that he had kept away, she was not so much hurt as puzzled.