Quintard left his seat at the end of the second act and walked back and forth in the lobby until he met Ralph Embury. “Do you know Miss Suydam?” he asked the lively little journalist. Embury hastened to assure him that he had the honor of Miss Suydam’s acquaintance. “Then introduce me,” said Quintard. Embury went at once to ask Miss Suydam’s permission for the desired presentation, and, returning in a few moments, told Quintard to follow him. Cryder gave his chair to Quintard, and Hermia was very gracious. She talked in a low, full voice as individual as her beauty—a voice that suggested the possibility of increasing to infinite volume of sound—a voice that might shake a hearer with its passion, or grow hoarse as a sea in a storm. Quintard had never heard just such a voice before, but he decided—why, he did not define—that the voice suited its owner. She said nothing beyond the small-talk born of the conditions of the moment, but she gave him food for speculation, nevertheless. Had it not been absurd, he would have said that twice a look of unmistakable terror flashed through her eyes. She was looking steadily at him upon both occasions—once he was remarking that he was delighted to get back to America, and again that he had last seen Tannhäuser at Bayreuth. He was also perplexed by a vague sense of unreality about her. What it meant he could not define; she was not an adventuress, nor was her beauty artificial. While he was working at his problems the curtain went down on the third act, and she rose to go. She held out her hand to him with a frank smile and said good-night. When she had put on her wraps she bent her head to him again and went out of the door. Then she turned abruptly and walked quickly back to him. The color had spread over her face, but the expression of terror had not returned to her eyes. They were almost defiant. “Come and see me,” she said quickly. He bowed. “I shall be delighted,” he murmured; but she left before he had finished. “She is lovely,” he thought, “but how odd! What is the matter with her?” * * * * * CHAPTER XXI. BACK TO THE PAST.