At the conclusion of the performance the young man passed out with the careless throng of street-persons, those Olympian _blasés_ who were half-sick of goddesses, and yawned in their faces. Remembering his former pilgrimage, he betook himself, with the bunch of flowers in his hand, to the narrow alley leading to the stage-door. It seemed a miraculous coincidence that one of the mightiest of the earth-poets should have written in his book, “All the world’s a stage,” and that the word “Stage-door” should now loom before his eyes, above the magic portal out of which the divinity was to issue, clad in flesh and blood. And yet it seemed still more miraculous that these sovereign intelligences could bring themselves to utter such poor commonplaces as these, which must be so plain to the meanest minds that they did not call for expression! He beheld the noble form of the goddess emerge from the stage-door. To-night she affected no humble straw hat and trailing, dusty skirt. She was attired as became her quality in a fine cloak and jewels. Her head was borne loftily, her eyes shone. This was the goddess, this was she. He clutched the bunch of flowers convulsively. Was such an offering meet for a goddess? Yes, they were creatures of the honest woodland pastures, even as herself. Even if she spurned them underfoot they should be offered to her. Already he had his hat in his hand, that it might sweep the earth; already words of homage had formed upon his lips. She was almost touching him with her fine raiment, and he was beginning to speak, when a splendid, handsome street-person, clad in furs, strode between her and his offering. In an instant she had passed. Yet the goddess had seen the bunch of flowers, for as she went by she looked steadily into the eyes of him who had dared to proffer them. She gave a little laugh, which made him draw in his breath as though he experienced the stroke of a knife. He went back into sanctuary to the little room, tormented into fever by a distress which he knew to be the measure of his weakness. Yet surely it was fitting that a goddess should despise him for having pretended to be what he was not. From this tragic evening he was unable to kneel in the little room. Like a barque that the fierce tempest has cast from its moorings into the trough of the merciless waves, he was tossed hither and thither among the deep waters, so that he lost all faith in his own power.