I don't know much of what came on the programme after that; for I was wakened by the storm of applause which followed and during the intermission I looked about at the audience around me. They filled the house from floor to roof; every seat was occupied, and the boxes looked like banks of flowers. All the faces were strange to me, though, and I was beginning to feel lonely again, and was turning to my old Drummer, when, sweeping the boxes, my eye fell on a girl who caught me at once. She was sitting a little forward looking across toward the orchestra with so serious an expression on her lovely face that I felt drawn to her even before I took in that she was the girl I had seen on the train and whom I had handed into her carriage. As I gazed at her this came to me--and with it such a warm feeling about my heart as I had not had in a long time. I looked at the men about her, one of whom was the good-looking clergyman, Dr. Capon, and the next instant all my blood was boiling--there, bending down over her, talking into her ear, so close to her that she had to sit forward to escape his polluting touch, was the gambler whom I had heard say not three weeks before that every American girl was open to a proposal from him. I don't know really what happened after that. I only remember wishing I had my pistol back--and being glad that I had pawned it, not sold it; for I made up my mind anew in that theatre that night to live and succeed, and preserve that girl from that adventurer. When the concert was over I watched the direction they took, and made my way through the crowd to the exit by which they would go into the foyer. There I waited and presently they came along. She was surrounded by a little party and was laughing heartily over something one of them had just said, and was looking, in the rich pink wrap which enveloped her, like a rich pink rosebud. I was gazing at her intently, and caught her eye, and no doubt struck by my look of recognition, she bowed. She had not really thought of me, she was still thinking of what had been said, and it was only a casual bow to some one in a crowd who knows you and catches your eye; but it was a bow, and it was a smiling one, and again that warm feeling surged about my heart which had come when I met her on the street. The next second that fellow came along. He was taller than most of the crowd, and well dressed, was really a handsome enough fellow but for his cold eyes and hard look. The eyes were too bold and the chin not bold enough. He was walking beside a large, blondish girl with shallow blue eyes, who appeared much pleased with herself or with him, but at the moment he was bowing his adieux to her while she was manifestly trying to hold on to him. "I don't think you are nice a bit," I heard her say, petulantly, as they came up to me. "You have not taken the least notice of me to-night."