As he walked, his thoughts touched lightly upon Rose-Ann—he had a fleeting memory-picture, uncoloured by any painful emotion, of her standing on the balcony of that house in Woods Point, about to jump off into the snow-bank; he sensed her as a creature possessed by some wish which she did not understand, driven on by it to delightful and absurd actions.... And Clive, ironically officiating as host to a bridal pair in the house which he had built to shelter his own happiness.... And Phyllis, holding Clive perpetually at arm’s length, because he was not utterly a god.... And himself, strangest shape of all, taking the emotions of all these other characters seriously and trying to adjust his life to them! They were like people in a play, strange and foolish, beautiful and pitiful. He saw them all, he saw his own past self, with a delicate and appreciating exactitude. But they did not matter—he could stop thinking of them, and look at the nimbus of light around the arc lamp on the corner. That was strange and beautiful, too. To be a spectator of the spectacle of existence! At first that was enough. But presently he was aware of a vague desire for a fellow-spectator. The desire was faint, but faint as it was it moved his steps to the Illinois Central platform, and presently he emerged upon Michigan Avenue. 2 That evening in the Artists’ Theatre there was a rehearsal of several episodes from Schnitzler’s “Anatol,” which was to be the second bill of the season. At midnight Elva Macklin saw Felix Fay stroll in and listen to the jaded end of the rehearsal from the theatre’s one tiny and inconvenient box. Felix saw her, too, and realized by what instinctive wish he had been led, without conscious thought, to the Artists’ Theatre. He wanted her for his fellow-spectator of the spectacle of existence. He saw her as if for the first time. He had never talked with her much; and he had been drunk, on dreams if not on whiskey, the time he had danced with her at the ball. She had been a sort of dream-figure to him, an out-of-the-world creature. He saw her now clearly enough—an intense young egotist in her every word and gesture; no dryad, but soulless enough for all her human nature—a girl who still kept the hardness of a child about her. She would never make a good actress, he reflected; she was too much herself; she was acting abominably her part in this Schnitzler play, but with her own special charm, the charm that made her what she was. But she was not a person to pity. He liked her for that. He would talk to her. A few moments later, as Elva Macklin was putting on her coat to go home, Felix Fay appeared at the door of the tiny women’s dressing room. The others had gone, she was there alone. “May I come in?” he asked. “Yes,” she said, “whoever you are ... and you may button my spats if you want to, Felix Fay. I’m too tired, and I was going off without them.”