Lionel followed her through the stage-door. Adventure beckoned, and he was not the man to disobey the seductive finger. True, the lady had a husband--a scurvy thought--but he had proved himself as strong as she. And she was deucedly pretty. They passed the janitor, who touched his hat to the lady, and went along a passage. Then up a flight of stairs and down another corridor, where sundry couples were lounging and chatting between their entrances. It was evidently a costume play, and the sight of doublets, rapiers and helmets was a pleasant thing after the drabness of the threshold. Illusion again threw her veil over the crudities of life; romance sounded the horn of hope and hallooed Lionel to the pursuit. The lady stopped suddenly before a door. This she opened and entered the room beyond. Lionel followed, closed the door, and looked about him. He was no stranger to the regions "behind," for in his younger days he had been the friend of many actors and actresses not a few. With the dressing-rooms of the men he was well acquainted,--those dingy color-washed chambers, lighted by flaring gas, divided by racks for dresses, equipped at times with but the washing-basin, stifling of atmosphere, with little room to turn about in. In his younger days, as has been observed, he had savored the delights of these unromantic barracks, and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience; now he was blase. Of the women's dressing-rooms he was ignorant, but in truth he was far from curious. He supposed they were something of a replica of what he had seen already,--four or five creatures herded in a bare loose-box, in the intervals of painting and dressing, engaged with talk of frills or scandal. The private dressing-rooms of those great creatures, the leading men and ladies, were still a sealed book. He had never known (oh, horrid thought!) a "lead," and he surveyed the present room with interest. There was little to reward him, for it was a very ordinary room, quietly furnished with two or three easy chairs, a dressing-table covered with "making-up" apparatus, a number of photographs scattered about in various coigns of vantage, a wall-paper of a warm terra-cotta tint, a soft carpet to correspond. A brass curtain-rod divided the room in two, but the curtain was not drawn. "Will you sit down?" said the hostess; "I must leave you for a moment. Try that chair in the corner,--it is the best. And do smoke--the cigarettes are close to you on that little table." With a swift movement she pulled the curtain along its rod and disappeared behind it. There followed a slight clicking as if she was switching on more light; then a soft rustling and the sound of her voice humming an air from _Carmen_. Lionel obediently lighted a cigarette and patiently awaited events.