"To marry each other," whispered Lissa with all her sweet fearlessness. "Oh, dear! there goes that monotonous piano and we'll be blocking people's view!" The poet tried to rise upon his great flat feet, but he was wedged too tightly; he strove to speak, to call after them, but the loud thumping notes of the piano drowned his voice. "Chlorippe! Dione! Philodice! Tell them to stop! Run after them and stay them!" panted the poet. "_You_ go!" pouted Dione. "No, I don't want to," explained Chlorippe, "because the curtain is rising." "I'll go," sighed Philodice, rising to her slender height and moving up the aisle as the children of queens moved once upon a time. She came back presently, saying: "Dear me, they're dreadfully in love, and they have driven away in two hansoms." "Gone!" wheezed the poet. "Quite," said Philodice, staring at the stage and calmly folding her smooth little hands. [Illustration] X [Illustration] When the curtain at last descended upon the parting attitudes of the players the poet arose with an alacrity scarcely to be expected in a gentleman of his proportions. Two and two his big, healthy daughters--there remained but four now--followed him to the lobby. When he was able to pack all four into a cab he did so and sent them home without ceremony; then, summoning another vehicle, gave the driver the directions and climbed in. Half an hour later he was deposited under the bronze shelter of the porte-cochere belonging to an extremely expensive mansion overlooking the park; and presently, admitted, he prowled ponderously and softly about an over-gilded rococo reception-room. But all anxiety had now fled from his face; he coyly nipped the atmosphere at intervals as various portions of the furniture attracted his approval; he stood before a splendid canvas of Goya and pushed his thumb at it; he moused and prowled and peeped and snooped, and his smile grew larger and larger and sweeter and sweeter, until--dare I say it!--a low smooth chuckle, all but noiseless, rippled the heavy cheeks of the poet; and, raising his eyes, he beheld a stocky, fashionably-dressed and red-faced man of forty intently eying him. The man spoke decisively and at once: "Mr. Guilford? Quite so. I am Mr. West." "You are--" The poet's smile flickered like a sickly candle. "I--this is--are you Mr. _Stanley_ West?" "I am." "It must--it probably was your son----" "I am unmarried," said the president of the Occidental tartly, "and the only Stanley West in the directory." The poet swayed, then sat down rather suddenly on a Louis XIV chair which crackled. Several times he passed an ample hand over his features. A mechanical smile struggled to break out, but it was not _the_ smile, any more than glucose is sugar. "Did--ah--_did_ you receive two tickets for the New Arts Theater--ah--Mr. West?" he managed to say at last. "I did. Thank you very much, but I was not able to avail myself----"