"It's meant to change! There are skirts and skirts: ever so many of them, on top of each other, and each one is different. They all get a chance at times. It's the vury latest craze. Mrs Moffatt nearly killed me when she saw it." "A chameleon effect. I see! Is it supposed to be symbolic?" "Of me? I guess not! When I've made up my mind, I _stick_! There's no chopping about for this child!" It was extraordinary how illusion vanished at the sound of the high- pitched, nasal voice. The fairy princess vanished, and in her place sat a flesh-and-blood damsel, composed, complacent, and matter-of-fact. Guest felt again the intrusion of a jarring note. He would have liked Cornelia to welcome him with a flutter of embarrassment, to have seen her eyes droop before his, and hear a quiver in her voice. He wanted to realise that he was the natural head and protector, and she the woman, the weak, clinging creature, whose happy destiny it was to be the helpmeet of man; but as Cornelia herself would have phrased it, there was "no cling to her." It seemed ridiculous to think of protection in connection with a creature so jauntily self-satisfied and independent. He sat by her side until the conclusion of the interval, but the conversation was forced and uninteresting, and he rose to depart with the depressing consciousness that the interview had been a failure, since it left him less in sympathy with Cornelia than he had been in the afternoon. On his way to the door, Guest's eyes caught the signal of a warning fan, and he looked up to see one of the boxes occupied by a party of his own friends. He had been too much occupied with Cornelia to look around the audience, but now it was impossible to leave the theatre without going upstairs a few minutes. After the ordinary greetings, complaints of the heat, and comparisons of engagements, followed the inevitable question-- "Who is Miss Rossetti?" "I beg your pardon?" "Your friend in the stalls. The girl with the wonderful hair?" "She's an American--a Miss Briskett. Over from the States on a short visit. I met her lately down in the country, and we happened to strike the same week for a visit to town." "Lucky for you! I've been admiring her all night. That hair and skin, and the glittering black-green frock! Quite bewitching! Where is she staying?" "At the Ritz, with some people she met coming over. She knows no one over here." The good lady's interest appeased, she turned back to the stage, fluttering her fan to and fro. Attracted by its movement, or by the glances focussed upon her, Cornelia tilted her head upwards, recognised Guest, and whispered to her companion. Mr Moffatt's eyes travelled obediently towards the box, to fasten, not on Guest but on the man by his side. For a moment they widened in unmistakable recognition, before, of set purpose, as it were, they grew blank and lifeless. He bowed slightly to Guest, and turned back to the stage.