Sir Donald appeared next, looking even more ghostly than usual. He sat down by Lady Holme, a little behind her. He seemed depressed, but the expression in his pale blue eyes when they first rested upon her made her thoroughly realise one thing--that it was one of her conquering nights. His eyes travelled quickly from her face to her throat, to her gown. She wore no jewels. Sir Donald had a fastidious taste in beauty--the taste that instinctively rejects excess of any kind. Her appeal to it had never been so great as to-night. She knew it, and felt that she had never found Sir Donald so attractive as to-night. Mr. and Mrs. Ulford came in just as the curtain was going up, and the introductions had to be gone through with a certain mysterious caution, and the sitting arrangements made with as little noise as possible. Lady Holme managed them deftly. Mr. Laycock sat nearest the stage, then Leo Ulford next to her, on her right. Sir Donald was on her other side, Mrs. Leo sat in the place of honour, with Lord Holme between her and Sir Donald. She was intensely pink. Even her gown was of that colour, and she wore a pink aigrette in her hair, fastened with a diamond ornament. Her thin, betraying throat was clasped by the large dog-collar she had worn at Arkell House. She cast swift, bird-like glances, full of a sort of haggard inquiry, towards Lady Holme as she settled down in her arm-chair in the corner. Lord Holme looked at her and at her ear-trumpet, and Lady Holme was glad she had decided not to have neuralgia. There are little compensations about all women even in the tiresome moments of their lives. Whether this moment was going to be tiresome or not she could not yet decide. The Wolfstein party had come in at the same time as the Leo Ulfords, and the box opposite presented an interesting study of Jewish types. For Mrs. Wolfstein and “Henry” were accompanied by four immensely rich compatriots, three of whom were members of the syndicate that was “backing” Miss Schley. The fourth was the wife of one of them, and a cousin of Henry’s, whom she resembled, but on a greatly enlarged scale. Both she and Amalia blazed with jewels, and both were slightly overdressed and looked too animated. Lady Holme saw Sir Donald glance at them, and then again at her, and began to think more definitely that the evening would not be tiresome. Leo Ulford seemed at present forced into a certain constraint by the family element in the box. He looked at his father sideways, then at Lady Holme, drummed one hand on his knee, and was evidently uncertain of himself. During the opening scene of the play he found an opportunity to whisper to Lady Holme: “I never can talk when pater’s there!” She whispered back: “We mustn’t talk now.”