The girl looked at him with interest. She, too, had heard of his triumph. “It is a good play,” she responded. “I like it better than the book. You've read the book, of course?” “No.” Loder tried hard to fix his thoughts. “It's amusing--but far-fetched.” “Indeed?” He picked up the programme lying on the edge of the box. His ears were strained to catch the tone of Lillian's voice as she laughed and whispered with Kaine. “Yes; men exchanging identities, you know.” He looked up and caught the girl's self-possessed glance. “Oh?” he said. “Indeed?” Then again he looked away. It was intolerable this feeling of being caged up! A sense of anger crept through his mind. It almost seemed that Lillian had brought him there to prove that she had finished with him--had cast him aside, having used him for the day's excitement as she had used her poodles, her Persian cats, her crystal-gazing. All at once the impotency and uncertainty of his position goaded him. Turning swiftly in his seat, he glanced back to where she sat, slowly swaying her fan, her pale, golden hair and her pale-colored gown delicately silhouetted against the background of the box. “What's your idea of the play, Lillian?” he said, abruptly. To his own ears there was a note of challenge in his voice. She looked round languidly. “Oh, it's quite amusing,” she said. “It makes a delicious farce--absolutely French.” “French?” “Quite. Don't you think so, Lennie?” “Oh, quite,” Kaine agreed. “They mean that it's so very light--and yet so very subtle, Mr. Chilcote,” Mary Esseltyn explained. “Indeed?” he said. “Then my imagination was at fault. I thought the piece was serious.” “Serious!” Lillian smiled again. “Why, where's your sense of humor? The motive of the play debars all seriousness.” Loder looked down at the programme still between his hands. “What is the motive?” he asked. Lillian waved her fan once or twice, then closed it softly. “Love is the motive,” she said. Now the balancing--the adjusting of impression and inspirations, of all processes in life, the most delicately fine. The simple sound of the word “love” coming at that precise juncture changed the whole current of Loder's thought. It fell like a seed; and like a seed in ultra-productive soil, it bore fruit with amazing rapidity. The word itself was small and the manner in which it was spoken trivial, but Loder's mind was attracted and held by it. The last time it had met his ears his environment had been vastly different; and this echo of it in an uncongenial atmosphere stung him to resentment. The vision of Eve, the thought of Eve, became suddenly dominant. “Love?” he repeated, coldly. “So love is the motive?” “Yes.” This time it was Kaine who responded in his methodical, contented voice. “The motive of the play is love, as Lillian says. And when was love ever serious in a three-act comedy--on or off the stage?” He leaned forward in his seat, screwed in his eye-glass, and lazily scanned the stalls.