He had never experienced anything like this before, and after the dismal events of the day, the exhilaration he felt was heightened by reaction. The stall in which he sat was luxurious. It was good to see around him so many prosperous, well-groomed men, and smiling, richly clad, or half-clad women. Then the lights, streaming on the gilding, the brass rails, the tall proscenium, and the gaudily panelled ceiling, with its naked nymphs, rosy limbed, floating from pursuing youths on banks of fleecy cumulus,--all tended to awaken the senses. But oh! the music and the ballet! that wild spontaneous rush of thistledown feet and lovely limbs, the glitter, the elaborately evolved design, the swift riot of colour swimming on a sea of soft melody that poured out over the darkened auditorium! From the white beauty of "Lés Sylphides," dreamlike, as a stirring of lilies on a moonlit pool, they had passed to the happy flirtations of "Carnival." John, in ecstasy, forgot the sick misery of his heart, forgot those cold refusals, the reluctant opening of numerous doors, the frigid examination of self-confident men, the waiting, the snubbing, the insolence of office boys and porters; his deep hatred of Fleet Street, his apprehension of fruitless days, all passed away as he peered into these glades of music and loveliness. With the blaze of prodigal splendour in "Scheherezade," the swift change of music from revelry to terror, the hurrying and scurrying of silk-clad women, the stern dignity of the departing Sultan, John's head swam. He almost forgot to look for Wellington and de Courtrai in that rapturous release of the captives and the licentious abandon of the women on their entry. It was with difficulty that he penetrated their disguise, for the effeminate dandies of Mariton Street were half-naked dusky men with muscular torsos who leapt and danced with fierce exultation before their adoring lovers. John could hardly realise that these superb athletes, masters of rhythm and gesture, were the two vulgar youths who, despite his coolness, had shown him nothing but kindness, with such insistence, that he had accepted their pressing invitations to this performance. And his amazement passed to unbounded admiration when de Courtrai died from a stroke of the Sultan's scimitar, in a magnificent somersault that laid his body prone at the feet of his terrified mistress. The curtain fell to a tumult of applause.