"How nice of you to come here first," she said with genuine pleasure, extending both her hands. "Mr. Gunther, go into the box ... I want a few minutes alone with Teddy!" She turned to Beecher, motioning him to a seat on the cushioned settee in the little pink and white room that was like a jewel box. "I saw you at once ... Your wife has made a sensation!" "It is you, Rita, who are astonishing!" he said abruptly. "How so?" she said, already comprehending the frank wonder in his eyes. "You always did fascinate us, you know," he said, reclining a bit, the better to take in the elegant sinuosities of her pose. "But that was nothing to you now ... You are the opera itself!" "Not quite yet," she said, with a confident little bob of the head. She added, "I am happy!" In truth, just as men of conscious greatness who, in the period of their struggles, have a certain brusque and impatient unease, suddenly in the day of their success acquire a dignity and a radiating charm that astonishes, so in her a similar transformation had operated. The old feline restlessness, the swift and nervous changes from Slavic somnolence to sparkling energy, has been subdued in a clear serenity, and as she received the flattering tribute of the young man who had been associated with her period of uncertainty, there was in her smile a new graciousness that was not without its authority. "You too are happy!—it shows!" she said after the moment which she allowed Beecher to study her. "Very!" "You have children?" "Two." Then recalling with a little pardonable malice the intention of his visit, he said: "You were a bad prophet, Rita! ... You remember?" "I do." "Well?..." "Well, I underestimated your intelligence, my dear Teddy," she said, with a fugitive smile. "You are settling in America?" "Yes, the Missus has planned to make me a captain of finance," he said with a laugh. "However, I am ready for something active." "Tell your wife," she said irrelevantly, "that I will come to see her after the next act. My husband returns tomorrow ... save the night after for us ... I want to be as good a friend to her as you have been to me! ... Give my message exactly!" "I promise!" All at once his eyes, which had been searching, rested on her left hand. On the fourth finger, guarded by the gold band of her marriage, was the ruby ring. "It’s the same, isn’t it?" he asked. "I always wear it," she said, raising it to her eyes. "It is a fetish." "We ran across Garraboy a couple of times ... He married her, you know." "She married him, you mean..." "Yes, that would be more correct ... watches the beggar like a hound ... a pleasant life he has of it! ... By the way, did the story about the ring ever leak out?" "Never!" She rose, as though feeling the end of the intermission. "Tell me one thing, Teddy...." "A dozen!" "Did you tell your wife I advised you not to marry?" "Never!"