She found no opportunity to see more of Miss Ward. She wanted to, for she was sure she was going to like her. She had always wanted to. "It's a good audience," breathed Clarence over her shoulder, as they looked through peep-holes in the curtain. "All the sisters and cousins and aunts have turned up. I say, Joy, the Fairy Queen was good for ten tickets at least. There's a row of her dear ones right across from aisle to aisle." The moment of the play had come all too swiftly, and in ten nerve-shattering minutes the curtain would go up. Ten minutes after that Joy would be rising out of a trap-door, in the character of a fairy who had spent the last twenty years at the bottom of a stream; incidentally she would be acting for the first time in her life. There was enough to be excited over; and yet it was none of these things that excited her--it was the curious note in Clarence Rutherford's voice as he spoke his trivial words in her ear. She moved away from him automatically. She was a little tired, tonight, of his persistent flirtation. It was all very well for a while, but surely--surely, she thought, it was time he'd had enough of it; and she went back off the stage, looking, though she scarcely acknowledged it to herself, for John. She felt as if she wanted to see as much of him as she could. He ought to have been in his dressing-room, but he was not. He was looking for her, she almost thought, for he came quickly toward her with his face lighted. "I'm so glad I found you before the thing commenced, kiddie," he said. "I just wanted to tell you that you're not to be frightened. Do you hear? I forbid you to be frightened." He smiled down at her protectingly. "You say you always do as I tell you--so you must this time. I know you're going to make a howling success of the opera.... My dear, _don't_ look so worried about it all!" They were in a little dim passage where no one was likely to come, and he drew her close to him, and kept his arm around her. "Do I look worried?" she answered simply. "I wasn't thinking about 'Iolanthe' so much. I suppose I'm tired with rehearsals, for it seems to me as if something I didn't like was going to happen.... John, I never asked you before, but I feel so little and lonesome tonight, and suddenly far away from everybody. Please say that you haven't minded all the naughty things I've done--that you like me, and forgive me, and----" "Like you and forgive you, foolish child! ... I don't know that I like you...." He looked down at her, laughingly. "And I have nothing to forgive you for. Why, Joy, it goes a great deal further than that. I thought you knew how much I cared for you." She clung to him, there in her green and white draperies, with her gold hair falling over them. She could scarcely believe the thing his words and voice said, but it was there to believe. She gave a little shiver and clung closer to him. "You--care?" "Of course I care!"