It was a small platform, with an upright piano set across one corner of it, a pair of worn plush curtains drawn across it, and a painted background of pallid sky and consumptive-looking marble pillars, well-known to Cross Loman during many years. Potted plants and ferns, and oil lamps, and little flags, were ranged above and below the three red baize steps that led up to the stage. At the conclusion of an item, the performer may openly descend these steps and return to the body of the hall, but in order to mount the stage from the auditorium, it is customary to edge round to a side erection of red baize-covered boxes, placed one upon another, and just too high to admit of either comfort or elegance in mounting. No Cross Loman audience ever applauds, or even perceives, any performer until this acrobatic feat has been accomplished, and the singer, or player, or reciter, stands safely facing the room, panting slightly from the achievement, but bowing pleasantly in acknowledgment of greeting claps. It was left to Mrs. Harter, perfectly well-known in the town before her marriage, to astonish Cross Loman by departing from precedent. She walked up the steps at the front of the platform, her back to the audience, and then turned round and faced them, not panting in the least, and bowing, if at all, without urbanity. “Nodding, I should call that,” Mrs. Kendal remarked, sharply, in a critical manner. “How absolutely right I was, when I said ‘personality’,” I heard Claire murmur to herself. I looked at Mrs. Harter, remembering the day when I had heard her discussed at the Manor House. She was a tall young woman, in a black net evening dress cut square at the neck. She was standing very erect and gazing straight in front of her with no slightest appearance of nervousness. “What a curiously defiant face!” whispered Sallie Ambrey to her brother. Martyn nodded. “Rather attractive.” Sallie looked dubious, and certainly Mrs. Harter’s expression was rather more than slightly disagreeable-looking. Her squarish jaw was slightly underhung, her somber face almost colorless, and her heavy-lidded eyes, set beneath thick, straight black brows, expressed nothing so much as resentment. Her hair was dark, and in exaggeration of the prevailing fashion was taken straight back from her forehead and brought low over her ears, accentuating the Slavonic suggestion of the high cheek-bones and broad, flat modeling of the features. Her skin, very dark, was coarse, rather than fine, in texture. “No,” said Sallie. “No. I can’t agree with you, Martyn. _Not_ attractive.” “Unusual, anyhow. Arresting.” “She doesn’t look like Cross Loman, I grant you that.” “Mrs. Harter--Song,” said Mrs. Kendal, for--I should think--the fourteenth time. “I suppose that means she’s going to sing.” It did.