The act was soon over, and then she saw Lord Algy's perfect figure rise to go out. That was "Jack Kilcourcy" she thought, probably, with him, about whom she had so often heard--and perhaps they had come to see some special beauty in the chorus, and would go on to supper later at the Savoy or elsewhere. Oh, no!--she would not allow herself to feel any more; she had surely passed beyond such things! The second act came and went, and the third, and when it was over she hurried Matilda out, in a desire to escape before the stall crowd could mingle with theirs in the doorway. It was raining a little when they came to the door, and there stood Lord Algy talking with his caressing devoted air to a lovely woman in black, whom Katherine had noticed in one of the boxes. He did not see her, as, clutching Matilda's arm, she shrank away among the bedraggled people beyond the lights, and there she paused and turned for a last look at him, and saw him follow the lady into a smart car, the door of which was being held open by a motor groom; it had just driven up. "We will have a taxi, Tild," she said. "Let us walk on and find one. I can't stand an omnibus to-night." She drove Matilda to Victoria first, and then went back to Berkeley Square, a rather damp creature in body and soul. And when she was in bed, the tears would trickle down her cheeks. It was all hateful! The dress circle--the rain--the cab--the dependence--and last of all Lord Algy and the lovely woman in black! Then her sense of the value of things came back again; her indomitable spirit revived, and before she fell asleep she knew that once for all she had banished any lingering regrets and that she would play for the great stakes in the game of her ambition with a zest as strong as the desire for love--that love which she now realized had been mainly an affair of the senses and which was over and dead. CHAPTER XXIII