Wilde's voice had been trembling with anger; now, Peter thought, it was suddenly near to breaking. He reached out one uncertain hand. And a wave of sympathy for the man flooded Peter's thoughts. “This is where their 'freedom,' their 'self-expression' leads them,” he thought bitterly. Egotism! Selfishness! Spiritual anarchy! It was all summed up, that revolt, in the girl's outrageous costume as she stood there before that older man, a minister, her own father! She caught the new note in her father's voice, hesitated the merest instant, but then went straight down the aisle, lips tight, eyes aflame, seeing and hearing nothing. The stage door opened. She ran up the steps, and Peter caught a glimpse of the hulking Zanin reaching out with a familiar hand to take her arm and draw her within.... He turned back in time to see Doctor Wilde, beaten, walking rapidly out to the street, and the poet at the door looking after him with an expression of sheer uncomprehending irritation on his keen young face. “There you have it again!” thought Peter. “There you have the bachelor girl--and her friends!” While he was thus indulging his emotions, the curtain went up on Zanin's little play. He stood there near the door, trying to listen. He was too excited to sit down. Turbulent emotions were rioting within him, making consecutive thought impossible. He caught bits of Zanin's rough dialogue. He saw Sue make her entrance, heard the shout of delighted approval that greeted her, the prolonged applause, the cries of “Bully for you, Sue!”... “You're all right, Sue!” Then Peter plunged out the door and walked feverishly about the Village streets. He stopped at a saloon and had a drink. But the Crossroads Theater fascinated him. He drifted back there and looked in. The first play was over. Hy was in a dim corner of the lobby, talking confidentially with Betty Deane. Then Sue came out with the Worm, of all persons, at her elbow. So _he_ had managed to meet her, too? She wore her street dress and looked amazingly calm. Peter dodged around the corner. “The way to get on with women,” he reflected savagely, “is to have no feelings, no capacity for emotion, be perfectly cold blooded!” He walked up to Fourteenth Street and dropped aimlessly into a moving-picture show. Toward eleven he went back to Tenth Street. He even ran a little, breathlessly, for fear he might be too late, too late for what, he did not know. But he was not. Glancing in at the door, he saw Sue, with Betty, Hy, the Worm, Zanin and a few others. Hurriedly, on an impulse, he found an envelope in his pocket, tore off the back, and scribbled, in pencil-- “May I walk back with you? I want vary much to talk with you. If you could slip away from these people.” He went in then, grave and dignified, bowing rather stiffly. Sue appeared not to see him. He moved to her side and spoke low. She did not reply.