To qualify what might appear to be a sweeping proposition, it may be stated that there are certain phases in certain women's lives when they make straight for the mystery surrounding a man, as moth does for candle, and singe their wings in so doing. Thus singed were the chaste and charming wings of Leonora Gurney. Herold, no more aware of an aura of mystery than of a halo, received the lady's advances in his frank, laughing way. She had the raven hair, dark, blue eyes, and white skin of an Irish ancestry. She was exceedingly attractive. She played her love-scenes with him--his part in the piece was that of a broken-down solicitor's clerk who entertained an angel unawares--with an artistic sympathy that is the rare joy of the actor, when he feels, like one who has the perfect partner in a waltz, that he merges his own individuality into a divine union. At the end of the third act the curtain came down on the angel bending over his chair, her hand in his. It remained there, a warm and human thing, and her breath was on his cheek, for a long time, while the curtain went up and down. It was by no means disagreeable to hold Leonora's hand and feel her breath on his cheek, after the common emotion of the swinging scene. Hundreds of men would have given their ears to have done the same without any swinging scene at all. Herold certainly took the lady by the tips of her fingers and adventured with her into the Land of Tenderness--the _Pays du Tendre_ of the old French romanticists. How could mortal man help it? The theatre and the theatrical world clacked with gossip. The unapproachable Leonora, the elusive Herold: it was brilliant high-comedy marriage. Already those not bound by romance criticized the possibilities of a joint management. Could he always play lead to her? Was not his scope, exquisite in it though he was, too limited? She was the Juliet of her generation. Would he be content to play the Apothecary? Sooner or later there would be the devil to pay. To the onlookers who see most of the game and to the overhearers who hear ever so much more, the affair between the two was a concluded matter; but the parties to the supposed contract still wandered in the sweet pastures of the indefinite. And this was through no fault of the lady. She did her best, as far as lay in the power of modest woman, to lead him to the precise highroad; but Herold remained as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp. “You 're not very responsive to-night, Walter,” she said during a wait in the first act, which they generally spent on the stairs leading from stage to dressing-rooms. In the intimate world of the theatre the use of the Christian name is a commonplace signifying nothing; but a trick of voice may make it signify a great deal. Herold, sensitive, caught her tone and bit his lip. “The actor's Monday slackness,” said he. “Where have you been week-ending?” “Nowhere in particular.”