Nanette came running out ahead of her party and stopped dead on seeing O’Shea. He bowed in his grave, courtly fashion. She glanced at me swiftly, and then: “Oh, Major O’Shea,” she said, “I want to ask you to forgive me!” “And I want to thank you,” said he. “To thank me?” Nanette looked up at him and then down again very swiftly. She began tapping her foot upon the rubber-coated floor. “To thank you,” he repeated, “once more. It seems to be my happy fate, Nanette, to be always thanking you.” “But what have you to thank me for?” she asked, industriously studying the point of her shoe. “For giving me an opportunity of redeeming my many failures.” Nanette looked up--she was quite calm again--and met his eyes bravely. “Some of them,” she said, “have been my fault.” “You are wrong,” O’Shea assured her. “The fault has been mine from the very beginning.” “What do you mean?” she asked; and I turned aside, joining some friends who had just come out from the stalls. In spite of my determination about Nanette, it still hurt a little bit to see that light in her eyes. “I mean,” I heard O’Shea reply, “that I have tried to do something that is impossible.” I heard no more, nor did I want to. That bell which indicates the rise of the curtain releases from the bars of a London theatre certain characteristic types. The wet man returning guiltily with guarded breath to his dry wife in the stalls, having stepped out to “smoke a cigarette.” The bored man, who is present under protest, and who goes to his seat like a martyr to the stake. The victim of jazzitis who dances with his girl friend in the lobby, and post-mortem examination of whose skull reveals the presence of several perfectly formed saxophones but nothing else. The curtain was about to rise and practically everybody was seated when I learned that Nanette had straggled. She stood with O’Shea in the opening at the back of the stalls. And I thought that I had never before seen her so animated in his company. Envied model of her girl friends, Nanette was a paragon of self-possession in the company of all men, or had been until she had met O’Shea. Never, hitherto, had I seen her at her ease with him. But to-night she was--realized that she was--and her happy excitement will be good to remember when I am ten years older. One hand resting upon his arm, she looked up, talking gaily. He, too, had relaxed, as any man must have done finding himself in the company of an adorably pretty and spirited girl who loved him so much that she didn’t care who knew. He was laughing like a schoolboy. The curtain was up before Nanette tore herself away. She was very flushed, and I know her heart was beating wildly. I pitied her escort, foreseeing that she would be abstracted throughout the remainder of the evening. O’Shea turned to me, and his eyes were still glistening happily. “Well, Decies,” said he, “what are you thinking?”