Nevertheless, he turned from the contemplation of Gertrude’s statuesque beauty to glance at the softer, but equally effective, radiance of Mrs. Percy-Bartlett; and their eyes met for the first time since he had entered the box. Richard felt that the sympathy that had seemed to exist between himself and Mrs. Percy-Bartlett at their first meeting was not a dream, but a reality; that the unrest he had experienced since he had looked into her brown eyes on parting with her a few nights before could still find relief when he gazed into those eyes again. She smiled, and leaned toward him. “I am not in the mood for oratorio, as this first act seems to be,” she whispered. “I’d rather talk to you.” Richard bent nearer to her. The perfume of her hair thrilled him with a subtle ecstasy. “I have much to say to you,” he answered, “about--about”-- “About what?” she murmured, smiling at his hesitancy. “About yourself. Myself--the last few days--about a thousand things that--that might bore you.” “Then don’t say them,” she remarked. “I cannot bear to be bored.” She turned to look at the stage, and Richard felt a pang of annoyance at her coquetry. Had he been a few years older, a bit more experienced in the ways of woman, he would have been pleased at her treatment of him. A woman does not waste coquetry on a man in whom she is not interested. Buchanan Budd and Gertrude Van Vleck were good friends. As there had never been anything warmer in their acquaintanceship than a keen appreciation of each other’s mental alertness, they took solid pleasure in each other’s society. Budd was a rather clever fellow by nature; but he had never let his cleverness go beyond the bonds of strict propriety. Having attained a much higher place in society than his parents had occupied, he conformed with almost religious reverence to the forms and edicts prescribed by the leaders of the circle in which he occupied a somewhat precarious position. He was a handsome man, and had inherited a large fortune; and so society had overlooked the fact that his immediate ancestors had been in trade, and had admitted him into its sacred precincts. Nevertheless, he had never felt quite assured of his position, and had made it a practice to walk in the very narrow groove paced by the leaders of his set. “Do you not find food for reflection?” he whispered to Gertrude Van Vleck, during the second act of the opera, “in this unhappy story of woman’s interference in public affairs?” She turned her dark blue eyes on him, and smiled coldly. “There are women and women,” she returned. “It was Samson’s weakness that brought disaster to himself and his people.” “I acknowledge my defeat,” said Budd humbly. “I have nothing to say for Samson, excepting that he sings rather well.” “That is graceful of you. But, frankly, Mr. Budd, you don’t approve of woman going into public life, and riding the bicycle?”