This was Miss Mont in her public character--Miss Mont, the actress--a woman living for the show and applause of the stage. She swept to the center of the stage in a trailing robe which was cut to display the line of her figure to perfection and which likewise left bare her neck and shoulders and her graceful arms. She wore no ornament. She needed none. Ryder noted, even, that she no longer wore the fine gold chain and the locket which had so stirred his doubts and jealousy two days before. She made another graceful courtesy and began her act. That she was troubled with diffidence--with actual stage fright--there could be little doubt. But some entertainers never get over that feeling on first appearance, so it did not disprove Ryder's belief that she was well trained in her art. Her methods were natural and did not smell of the stage; nevertheless Ryder was unconvinced. No woman who had not had long training could have acted the part Miss Mont had played at the Pinewood Inn. Why, _this_ was an utterly different woman! "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, and her voice thrilled John Ryder where he sat with his burning gaze fixed on her face, "I am to imitate certain well-known actors and actresses whose peculiarities and oddities are more or less familiar to you, as they are to me. "As this is my first visit to America, I cannot imitate your own local celebrities--only such of the profession as may have come to England and whom I have seen in London. For instance, I will try to imitate"--here she named a musical comedy celebrity who had made a hit on both sides of the Atlantic--"as she sings her most popular song in 'The Bridal Bell.'" Instantly the transformation that took place in Miss Mont's attitude and facial expression carried the house by storm. Before she opened her lips to sing a line of the ditty that had been so popular in "The Bridal Bell," she looked the woman she imitated to the life. Ryder was actually startled. He remembered that once, in a spirit of fun, while aboard ship, Miss Mont had roguishly imitated the peculiarities of a fellow-passenger for his private amusement. He had not encouraged her, because he thought it savored too much of the very thing he desired to shield her from--the stage. Ah, why had not his eyes been opened then to what manner of woman she was? Yet during the few hours she had been with him at the Pinewood Inn she had attempted nothing of this kind. Nothing in her speech or actions then had suggested the theater. What a consummate actress this wretched woman was! The applause of the crowd encouraged her. She did not undertake anything very difficult; but she filled her seventeen minutes acceptably; and with her beauty and personal charm there was little doubt that her act would be a hit. Her popularity with this audience did anything but please Ryder. The more the crowd applauded the more bitter were his feelings, and the deeper was the pain he suffered.