The prompter's office, now that this piece had been running over four hundred nights, was practically a sinecure, so that there was no trouble about getting Lady Cunyngham installed in the little corner, whence, through a small aperture, she could regard the dusky-hued audience or turn her attention to the stage just as she pleased. Miss Honnor stood close by her, when she was allowed--keeping out of sight of the opposite boxes as much as she could, though she observed that the workmen about her did not care much whether they were visible or not, and that they talked or called to one another with a fine indifference towards what was going forward on the stage. At present a minuet was being danced, and very pretty it was; she could not help noticing how cleverly Miss Burgoyne managed her train. As for her mother, the old lady seemed intensely interested and yet conscious all the time that she herself, in this strange position, was an interloper; again and again she rose and offered to resign her place to the rather shabby-looking elderly man who was the rightful occupant; but he just as often begged her to remain--he seemed mostly interested in the management of the gas-handles just over his head. And now came in the comic interlude which Lionel had feared most of all--the squire's faithful henchman going through all the phases of getting drunk in double-quick stage-time; and, while those stupidities were going forward, Lionel and Miss Burgoyne were supposed to retire up the stage somewhat and look on. Well, they took up their positions--Grace Mainwaring being seated. "Your giraffe is rather handsome," she said, behind her fan. "I believe she is considered to be one of the best-looking women in England," said he, somewhat stiffly. "Oh, really! Well, of course, tastes differ," Miss Grace Mainwaring said. "I don't think a woman should have blacking-brushes instead of eyebrows. But it's a matter of taste." "Yes," said he, "and comic opera is the sort of place where one's taste becomes so refined. What do you think of this gag now? Is this what the public like--when they come to hear music?" "You're very fastidious--you want everything to be super-fine--but you may depend on it that it keeps the piece going with the pit and gallery." His answer to that was one of this young lady's strangest experiences of the stage: Lionel Moore had suddenly left her, and, indeed, quitted this scene, in which he was supposed to be a chief figure. He walked down the wings until he found himself close to Miss Honnor Cunyngham. "Miss Cunyngham," he said. She turned--her eyes somewhat bewildered by the glare of light on the stage. "Come back, please," he said. "I don't want you to see this scene--it has nothing to do with the operetta--and it is dull and stupid and tedious beyond description." She followed him two or three steps, wondering.