She tried to distract her mind with the play; but O'Riordan's play--poor, thinly-poetic stuff, indifferently mouthed by mummers whose sole claim to their salary was their supping-acquaintance with the fringe of Society--failed to hold her thoughts. Her thoughts hovered between the enemy audience, blur of heads below, and the two friends, her only friends in a hostile world, on either side. Thinking of their loyalty, Aliette no longer shrank from her ordeal. Her heart swelled, resolute against all hostility. It became two hearts: the one, warm and throbbing with partizanship for the stark old lady beside her, the old lady who had never turned a hair since they entered the theater, and for the "old lady's" son, for the man whose love was a rock: the other, icy-cold, almost beatless, frozen to contempt. What a farce was this social game! As if the world's hostility mattered! One played one's little part on the stage of life, played it as best one might to the prompting of conscience, till the curtain fell, as it was falling now to a subdued rattle of perfunctory applause and the usual "snatched" calls. Aliette felt Ronnie's fingers tighten on her own, relax. The house lights went up. "Letchingbury will lose his money," remarked Julia calmly. "O'Riordan's poetic drama is merely an excuse for bad poetry and no drama. By the way, that _is_ Letchingbury, isn't it?" She looked across at the stage-box; and Ronnie, looking with her, saw a young man, blond, with a receding chin and a receding forehead. "Yes. That's Letchingbury all right," he said. "And, by the way, Alie, isn't that your friend, Mrs. O'Riordan?" "I should hardly call her my friend," answered Aliette, a little bitterly; and steeled herself to look down at the stalls. Hector's was already empty. The remainder of the Brunton party sat perfectly rigid. Sir Peter Wilberforce, remembering himself one of Julia Cavendish's executors, managed a surreptitious nod. Dot Fancourt, like Hector, had escaped. Various dramatic critics, sidling their way out of the stalls toward the bar, bowed to Julia as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Mary O'Riordan retired ostentatiously to the back of her box. Aliette panicked again. Suppose Ronnie left her? Suppose Ronnie and Hector met--in public? But Ronnie, for all his obtuser mind, divined that his women-folk were under fire; and that duty forbade him to desert. He whispered to her: "Not so bad as you anticipated, eh? Of course one can't expect the Bruntons to be exactly cordial." "I wish they hadn't been here," whispered back Aliette. "It makes things so much worse." "Rubbish!" interrupted Julia. "It's the best thing that could possibly have happened. He'll have to bring his action after this, or be the laughing-stock of Mayfair."