“Look!” exclaimed the girl to the pompous man—and, though she spoke in an undertone, it was an undertone pregnant with sharp interest, almost excitement. “Look! There’s Gracie Templeton, who started rehearsing with this show and got fired. They say she had quite an affair with Mortimer.” “Not much distinction in that,” remarked the man. “He’s crazy about women.” “Not much distinction either way,” said the woman lightly and heartlessly. “Grace has played about with ever so many men. But she isn’t altogether a bad sort, you know, and this Mortimer man seems to have the power to make women care for him awfully.” “Do you know him?” demanded her escort jealously. “Not I!” She laughed. “But seriously, Dicky, I shouldn’t think she’d want to come to-night and see him playing with another woman.” “Maybe she means to pull a Booth-and-Lincoln stunt,” suggested the pompous man. “She’s fixed just right for it if she does.” “Oh, don’t! It’s horrible just to think of! You’re so cold-blooded, Dicky! Hush! The play’s beginning. I do like military shows, don’t you?” Barrison did not wait to see the opening of the piece. He had seen it once at dress rehearsal, and, anyway, he had other fish to fry. He slid out of his seat swiftly and almost unnoticeably and made his way without waste of time up the aisle and around in discreetly tempered darkness to the stage box which held Miss Grace Templeton. As he passed between the box curtains and came up behind her, she did not hear him, and he stood still for a moment before making any move which would reveal his presence. In that moment he had noticed that she was dressed entirely in black, that melancholy rather than passion was the mood which held her, and that she was watching the stage less with eagerness than with a wistful, weary sort of attention. She leaned back in her chair, and her hands lay loosely folded in her lap. There was about her none of the tension, none of the excitement, either manifest or suppressed, that accompanies a desperate resolve. Barrison felt the momentary chill of foreboding, which certainly had crept up his spine, pass into a warmer and more peaceful sentiment of pity. He slipped into a chair just behind her without her having detected him. This, too, was reassuring. People with guilt, even prospective guilt, upon their consciences were always alert to interruption and possible suspicion. She was looking fixedly at the stage where Mortimer was now making his first entrance.