The young man felt himself to be a little more resolute, and a trifle more composed by the time he found himself seated in a balcony of the Alcazar Theatre. In spite of the circumstance that the great garish building was thronged with many hundreds of street-persons, the majority of whom appeared to be emitting most acrid and penetrating fumes from their mouths, the air was much cooler there than it had been anywhere else that day. The curtain was up, the band was playing, the stage was a blaze of light, and a lady of Amazonian proportions was singing a song, not a word of which was intelligible to William Jordan. But as he lay back in the purple velvet cushion of his fauteuil, reclining almost pleasantly, and looking up at the ceiling, upon which, in crude tints, somewhat obscured by the all-pervading fumes of tobacco, was a not particularly reticent presentment of the Muses. In a circle round these was painted in large and unmistakable letters the following names: Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, Spenser, Dryden, Tupper, Wordsworth, Macready. “We can hardly see John Dobbs from here,” said Mr. James Dodson, who reclined by the young man’s side. “He is the third chap playing the fiddle down there in the well, but I can only just catch the top of his head.” William Jordan continued to recline in reasonable surcease from bodily pangs for several hours. Further, he was able to evade Mr. Dodson’s repeated and pressing invitations to accompany him to the refreshment buffet. And at last, towards the hour of ten, the chief event of the evening, the War and Peace Ballet, was heralded by a fanfare of trumpets and loud crashings of music. “Now then, my son, sit tight,” said Mr. Dodson. “We are going to see Hermione.” The curtain rose slowly to reveal Hera, the white-armed goddess. She was clad in dazzling robes of mail and a massive helmet, with ear-pieces dangling about her golden locks. William Jordan gave a gasp of bewilderment; pain and pleasure contending for mastery swelled his veins with intolerable pangs. This was the goddess, this was she. His eerie pilgrimage to the evening party flooded back into his thoughts. Yes, this was the goddess whose hand he had touched. And now, as she stood clothed in her robes of mail and bearing her sceptre, with wonderful lights playing around her majestical calm, she appeared to the young man’s rapt gaze the first of the goddesses, and, therefore, the most beautiful, the most chaste, the most exalted creature, of which fact or fable was cognizant. “Ain’t she a stunner!” said the voice of Mr. Dodson, breaking upon his reverie. “If I hadn’t decided that all women are alike, as far as a rising man is concerned, I’m hanged if I wouldn’t have a cut at her myself. She is a bit of all right though, Luney. I think we’ll trot round to the stage-door and see her after the show.”