"Well, listen next time. And all I have to say is, if that firing-line, with its battery of innocent blue eyes, understands him, you and I had better apply to the nearest night-school for the rudiments of an education." "Well, what did he say?" began the other uneasily, when again the poet bent forward to address the firing-line; and the lovely blue battery turned silently upon the author of their being. "Art is the result of a complex mental attitude capable of producing concrete simplicity." "Help!" whispered Harrow, but the poet had caught his eye, and was fixing the young man with a smile that held him as sirup holds a fly. "You ask me what is Art, young sir? Why should I not heed you? Why should I not answer you? What artificial barriers, falsely called convention, shall force me to ignore the mute eloquence of your questioning eyes? You ask me what is Art. I will tell you; it is _this_!" And the poet, inverting his thumb, pressed it into the air. Then, carefully inspecting the dent he had made in the atmosphere, he erased it with a gesture and folded his arms, looking gravely at Harrow, whose fascinated eyes protruded. Behind him Lethbridge whispered hoarsely, "I told you how it would be in the New Arts Theater. I told you a young man alone was likely to get spoken to. Now those six girls know you're a broker!" "Don't say it so loud," muttered Harrow savagely. "I'm all right so far, for I haven't said a word." "You'd better not," returned the other. "I wish that curtain would go up and stay up. It will be my turn to sit next them after this act, you know." Harrow ventured to glance at the superb young creature sitting beside him, and at the same instant she looked up and, catching his eye, smiled in the most innocently friendly fashion--the direct, clear-eyed advance of a child utterly unconscious of self. "I have never before been in a theater," she said; "have you?" "I--I beg your pardon," stammered Harrow when he found his voice, "but _were_ you good enough to speak to _me_?" "Why, yes!" she said, surprised but amiable; "shouldn't I have spoken to you?" "Indeed--oh, indeed you should!" said Harrow hastily, with a quick glance at the poet. The poet, however, appeared to be immersed in thought, lids partially closed, a benignant smile imprinted on his heavy features. "_What_ are you doing?" breathed Lethbridge in his ear. Harrow calmly turned his back on his closest friend and gazed rapturously at his goddess. And again her bewildering smile broke out and he fairly blinked in its glory. "This is my first play," she said; "I'm a little excited. I hope I shall care for it." "Haven't you ever seen a play?" asked Harrow, tenderly amazed. "Never. You see, we always lived in the country, and we have always been poor until my sister Iole married. And now our father has come to live with his new son-in-law. So that is how we came to be here in New York." "I am _so_ glad you _did_ come," said Harrow fervently.