Harriet found to her joyous surprise her dressing room transformed into a bower of roses. A great bouquet of three dozen American beauties on her table bore her father's name and all the rest were from Stuart. She had a vague surmise that he paid for her father's, too. Every tint of rose that blooms he had sent, hiring an artist to arrange them so that their colouring made a veritable song of joy as she entered. There was no card to indicate who had sent these wonderful flowers, but she knew. There was only one man on earth who loved her well enough. Her heart gave a throb of daring joy at the thought! Surely such a token meant more than merely the big brotherly tenderness which he assumed so naturally. And then her heart sank with the certainty that he didn't mean it in the deep sense she wished. He called her 'dear,' and 'dearie,' and 'little pal' too glibly. He had always told her that he loved her too easily. What she wished was the speech that stammered and halted and uttered itself in broken, half-articulate syllables because there were no words in the human language to express its meaning. She buried her golden head in a huge bunch of white roses the artist had placed in the centre of the room, drinking their perfume for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. "I wonder if he does think of me still as a child?" she mused. "I wonder if he never suspects the storm within? Well----" She smiled triumphantly. "I'll tell him something to-night in my song!" Nan was not in an amiable mood when Stuart led her to the box in the millionaire's playhouse which New York society built to exhibit its gowns, jewellery and beautiful women. He had insisted on coming early. Nan had always entered late and no woman in the magic circle of gilded splendour had ever attracted more attention or received it with more queenly indifference. It was acknowledged on every hand that she was the most beautiful woman in New York's exclusive set. Northern men had exhausted their vocabulary of flattery in paying homage to the perfection of her stately Southern type. Those big Northern business fellows had often shown a preference for Southern women. Many of them had married poor girls of the South and they had become the leaders of their set. Nan's opportunity for intrigue and flirtation had been boundless, but so far not a whisper about her had ever found its way into the gossip of the scandalmongers of high life. To-night she was bent on creating a mild sensation by entering late and placing Stuart in a position so conspicuous, the presence of her tall distinguished escort would at once command attention, and provoke inquiry. He had quite innocently frustrated this little plan by insisting on the unusual and vulgar procedure of entering the box in time to hear the opera. "But Jim," Nan protested bitterly, "it's so cheap and amateurish."