"What does the public know of her real greatness? Capable of imagining the most diverse types of feminine character, living each night on the stage in an atmosphere of heartless and destructive intrigue, she yet retains a divine integrity, an inalienable graciousness. Dare I, a moody, selfish brute, touch the hem of her garment?" In this mood he watched the audience gather--a smiling, cheerful-voiced, neighborly throng. There were many young girls among them, and their graceful, bared heads gave to the orchestra chairs a brilliant and charmingly intimate effect. The _roue_, the puffed and beefy man of sensual type, was absent. The middle-aged, bespangled, gluttonous woman was absent. The faces were all refined and gracious--an audience selected by a common interest from among the millions who dwell within an hour's travel of the theatre. Douglass fancied he could detect in these auditors the same feeling of security, of satisfaction, of comfort with which they were accustomed to sit down of an evening with a new book by a favorite author. "If I could but win a place like that," he exclaimed to himself, "I would be satisfied. It can be done when the right man comes." A dinner engagement delayed the eminent author, but he came in as the curtain was rising, and, shaking hands cordially, presented Mr. Rufus Brown, a visiting London critic. "Mr. Brown is deeply interested in your attempt to do an American play," said the great novelist. "I hope--I am sure he will witness your triumph to-night." Thereupon they took seats with flattering promptness in order not to miss a word of the play. Helen, coming on a moment after, was given a greeting almost frenziedly cordial, and when she bowed her eyes sought the box in which her lover sat, and the audience, seeing the distinguished novelist and feeling some connection between them, renewed their applause. Douglass, at the back of the box, rose and stood with intent to express to Helen the admiration, the love, and the respect which he felt for her. She was, indeed, "the beautiful, golden-haired lady" of whom he had written as a boy, and a singular timidity, a wave of worship went over him. He became the imaginative lad of the play, who stood in awe and worship of mature womanhood. The familiar Helen was gone, the glittering woman was gone, and in her place stood the ideal of the boy--the author himself had returned to "the land of morning glow"--to the time when the curl of a woman's lip was greater than any war. The boy on the stage chanted: "Where I shall find her I know not. But I trust in the future! To me She will come. I am not forgot. Out in the great world she's waiting, Perhaps by the shore of the sea, By the fabulous sea, where the white sand gleams, I shall meet her and know her and claim her. The beautiful, stately lady I see in my dreams." "I dare not claim her," said the man, humbled by her beauty. "I am not worthy of her."