Every night thereafter he was at the theatre where she was appearing, watching her dance from the front row or from the lobby, agitated with mingled pleasure and jealousy when she received loud applause, angry at the audience when the plaudits were not enthusiastic. When their acquaintance was two weeks old, she allowed him to wait for her at the stage door, and at last he was permitted to take her to supper. There was a second supper, at which four composed the party. We had a room to ourselves, with a piano in the corner. The event lasted long, and near the end, while the other soubrette played the tune on the piano, and Folsom kept time by clinking the champagne glass against the bottle, the little Tyrrell, continually laughing, did her skirt dance, “La Gitana.” Thus with that waltz tune ever sounding in his ears, he fell in love with her; strangely enough, really in love. She, having her own affairs to mind, gave him no thought when he was not with her, and when they were together she deemed him quite a good-natured, bearable fellow, as long as he did not bore her. He made several declarations of love to her. She smiled at them, and said, “You're like the rest; you'll get over it. Meanwhile, don't look like that; be cheerful.” At certain times, when circumstances were auspicious, when there was night and electric light and a starry sky with a moon in it, she was half-sentimental, but such moods were only superficial and short-lived, and she invariably brought an end to them with flippant laughter or some matter-of-fact speech that came with a shock to Billy, although it did not cool his adoration. Billy became quite gloomy. He was the veritable sighing lover. Although for a month he was admittedly the chief of her admirers and saw her every day, he seemed to make no progress toward securing a hospitable reception for and a response to his love. One day, as they were walking together on Broadway, she said: “You're always in the dumps nowadays. Really you must not be that way. Doleful people make me tired.” And thereafter Billy, possessed by a horrible fear that his mournful demeanour might cause his banishment from her, kept making desperate efforts to be lively, which were a dismal failure. It was ludicrous. The gayer he affected to be, the more emphatic was his manifest depression. So she wearied of his company. One day he called at her hotel, and, as was his custom, went immediately to her sitting-room without sending in his card. Before he knocked at the door, he heard the notes of her piano; some one was playing the air of “La Gitana” with one finger. After two or three bars, the instrument was silent. Then a man's voice was heard. Billy knocked angrily. Miss Tyrrell opened the door, looked annoyed when she saw him, and introduced him to the tenor of a comic opera company of which she recently had been engaged as leading soubrette. Billy's call was a short one.