The curtain rose, and Father Algarcife turned to the stage. But he did not see it. The figures were blurred before his eyes and the glare tortured him. Across the circle of space he knew that Mariana was sitting, her head upraised, her cheek resting upon her hand, her face in the shadow. He could almost see her eyes growing rich and soft like green velvet. Then, as the voice of the soprano rang out, he started slightly. Beneath the song of love he heard the cry of ambition--a cry that said: _"I would give half my life for this--to sing with Alvary."_ Whence the words came he did not know. He had no memory of them in time or place, but they struggled in the throat of the soprano and filled the air. He turned and looked at her as she sat across from him, her cheek resting in her hand against a blaze of diamonds. She looked white, he thought, and wistful and unsatisfied. Then a fierce joy took possession of him--a joy akin to the gloating of a savage cruelty. She had failed. Yes, in spite of the brocade of her gown, in spite of the diamonds in her hair, in spite of the homage in the eyes of men that followed her--she had failed. The blood rushed into his temples, and he felt it beating in his pulses. He was glad--glad that she was unsatisfied--glad of the struggle and of the failure--glad of the slow torture of famished aspirations. And from the throat of the soprano the words rang heavy with throbs of unfulfilment: _"I would give half my life for this--to sing with Alvary."_ Then as he looked at her she stirred restlessly, and their eyes met. It was a blank look, such as two strangers might have interchanged, but suddenly he remembered the night they came together and sat in the fifth gallery. A dozen details of that evening flickered in his memory and reddened into life. He remembered the splendors of her eyes, the thrill in her voice, the nervous tremor of her hands. He remembered the violets in her bonnet, created from nothing after a chapter of Mill--and the worn gloves with the stains inside, which benzine had not taken away. He remembered her faintness when the opera was over, and the grocery-shop across from The Gotham, where they had bought ale and crackers. He saw her figure as she sat on the hearth-rug in her white gown, her hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her eyes drowsy with sleep. He saw her hands--bare then of jewels--as she unfastened the parcels, and heard her laugh as he drew the cork and the ale spilled upon the crackers. Good God! He had forgotten these things eight years ago.