Prosper did not notice the Jew's intelligent expression. He was too much absorbed in his own excitement. In a moment he would be with Joan--Joan, his love of winter nights! Morena tapped upon a door. A maid half-opened it. "Ask Miss West, please, if she will see a friend of Mr. Morena's. Tell her I particularly wish her to give him a private interview." He scribbled a line on a card and the maid took it in. In five minutes, during which the two men waited silently, she came back. "Miss West will see your friend, sir." "Ah! Then I'll take myself off. Prosper, will you join Betty and me at supper?" "No, thanks. I'll have my brief interview with Miss West and then go home, if you'll forgive me. I'm about all in. New York's too much for a man just home from the front." Jasper laid his hand for a moment on Prosper's shoulder, smiled, shrugged, and turned away. Prosper waited till his friend was out of sight and hearing, then knocked and was admitted to the dressing-room of Miss Jane West. She had not changed from the evening dress she had worn in the last scene nor had she yet got rid of her make-up. She was sitting in a narrow-backed chair that had been turned away from the dressing-table. The maid was putting away some costumes. Prosper walked half across the room and stopped. "Miss West," he said quietly. She stood up. The natural color left her face ghastly with patches of paint and daubs of black. She threw back her head and said, "Prosper!" just above her breath. "Go out, Henrietta." This was spoken to the maid in the voice of Jane the virago and Henrietta fled. At sight of Joan, Prosper had won back instantly his old poise, his old feeling of ascendancy. "Joan, Joan," he said gently; "was ever anything so strange? Why didn't you let me know? Why didn't you answer my letters? Why didn't you take my money? I have suffered greatly on your account." Joan laughed. Four years ago she would not have been capable of this laugh, and Prosper started. "I wrote again and again," he said passionately. "Wen Ho told me that you had gone, that he didn't know anything about your plans. I went out to Wyoming, to our house. I scoured the country for you. Did you know that?" "No," said Joan slowly, "I didn't know that But it makes no difference to me." They were still standing a few paces apart, too intent upon their inner tumult to heed any outward situation. She lowered her head in that dangerous way of hers, looking up at him from under her brows. Her color had returned and the make-up had a more natural look. "Maybe you did write, maybe you did send money, maybe you did come back--I don't care anything for all that." She made a gesture as if to sweep something away. "The day after you left me in that house, Pierre, my husband, came up the trail. He was taking after me. He meant to fetch me home. You told me"--she began to tremble so violently that the jewels on her neck clicked softly--"you told me he was _dead_."