The omnibus was caught in a jam of cars and carriages; there were several moments of confusion and excitement. When the Fanshaw party was finally able to descend, she saw that Jack and his companion were gone--the danger of a scene was over for the moment. She lingered and made the others linger, wishing to give him time to get to his seats. When they entered the theater it was dark and the curtain was up. But her eyes, searching the few boxes visible from the rear aisle, found the woman, or, at least, enough of her for recognition--the huge black hat with its vast pale blue feather. Pauline drew a long breath of relief when the Fanshaws' box proved to be almost directly beneath, the box. If she had been a few years older, she would have given its proper significance to the curious fact that this sudden revelation of the truth about her husband did not start a tempest of anger or jealousy, but set her instantly to sacrificing at the shrine of the great god Appearances. It is notorious that of all the household gods he alone erects his altar only upon the hearth where the ashes are cold. As she sat there through the two acts, she seemed to be watching the stage and taking part in the conversation of the Fanshaws and their friends; yet afterward she could not recall a single thing that had occurred, a single word that had been said. At the end of the last act she again made them linger so that they were the last to emerge into the passage. In the outside doorway, she saw the woman--just a glimpse of a pretty, empty, laughing face with a mouth made to utter impertinences and eyes that invited them. Mrs. Fanshaw was speaking--"You're very tired, aren't you?" "Very," replied Pauline, with a struggle to smile. "What a child you look! It seems absurd that you are a married woman. Why, you haven't your full growth yet." And on an impulse of intuitive sympathy Mrs. Fanshaw pressed her arm, and Pauline was suddenly filled with gratitude, and liked her from that moment. Alone in her sitting-room at the hotel, she went up to the mirror over the mantel, and, staring absently at herself, put her hands up mechanically to take out her hat-pins. "No, I'll keep my hat on," she thought, without knowing why. And she sat, hat and wrap on, and looked at a book. Half an hour, and she took off her hat and wrap, put them in a chair near where she was sitting. The watched hands of the clock crawled wearily round to half-past one, to two, to half-past two, to three--each half-hour an interminable stage. She wandered to the window and looked down into empty Fifth Avenue. When she felt that at least an hour had passed, she turned to look at the clock again--twenty-five minutes to four. Her eyes were heavy. "He is not coming," she said aloud, and, leaving the lights on in the sitting-room, locked herself in the bedroom.