In the foyer, on the way out, the party became scattered. Crowds surging from the main aisle pressed forward and separated Mrs. Gault, her husband, and Pearl McCormick from the other three, who had stopped in an angle of space near the stairway for Letitia to adjust her cloak. As Gault was shaking it out preparatory to laying it across her shoulders, her attention was caught by the figures of Colonel Reed and Viola, who emerged from the entrance of a side aisle just in front of them. The colonel's eye fell on Gault, his face beamed with recognition and pleasure, and, with a word to Viola, he started forward to greet him. Viola gave a vexed exclamation and caught him by the arm, evidently with the intention of deterring him. But the old man, flushed with the excitement of once more finding himself in the familiar scenes of light and revelry, seized her hand, and, drawing her with him, came forward. Viola, thus forcibly overruled, advanced, her face full of distressed embarrassment. Gault, who had been occupied with the cloak, had not seen this little pantomime, and the first intimation he had of the colonel's proximity was his loud and patronizing greeting. He turned quickly and saw the old man, bland and majestic as ever, and beside him Viola, pained and uncomfortable, the object of Tod's admiring stares, and only too plainly dragged forward by her ill-inspired father. His face flushed with annoyance, aroused alike by the false position in which the girl was placed, and by the revelation thus made to Letitia that he had not been frank when he had led her to believe that he did not know Colonel Reed's daughter. His indignation found expression in his cold and almost curt reply to the colonel's greeting. There was no mistaking its import. It spoke so plainly of annoyance that even the easy affability of the old man was disturbed. He looked taken aback, and for a moment evidently did not know what to say. Tod looked from one man to the other, grinning at the embarrassment of a situation he did not understand. For a moment there was a most disagreeable pause. Letitia knew that recognition would betray the fact that she had met Viola, but the mortification of the girl's position made her bold. "How do you do, Miss Reed?" she said; and then, as a brilliant afterthought, "Do you like music?" "Very much," Viola managed to answer; "and it was good, wasn't it?" "It was A1," said Tod, not by any means intending to be left out; "and that prima donna, ain't she a peach?" "Mme. Foedor is a lovely Gilda. She looks so young. Most of them are too old and matronly," continued Letitia, fastening the clasps of her cloak, and wondering if this exceedingly uncomfortable conversation was to be prolonged. Viola's reply put an end to her uneasiness: "Lovely! I never saw her before, or the opera, either. But we must go. Father, we'll miss the car if we don't hurry. Good night. Good night, Mr. Gault."