She never could be his, the little brown-eyed cottage maiden, who had scorned him for his light love, and flung his roses back into his face. How the thorns had stung, as well as the lash of her little tongue, as she had berated him so soundly. Then when she had flung herself so desperately from his vehicle to almost certain death, could he ever forget that tragic hour? He stifled a groan, and shrank back farther into the shade of the tall palm near the door, where he had slipped into an irregular seat not in the rows. Oh, Heaven, what had been the mystery of her fate? Since he could not fathom it, why could he not forget? He must forget, he vowed, passionately to himself, for by and by, when he became Rosalind’s husband, it would be a sin to his blue-eyed bride for those haunting brown orbs to come between. When he landed first in the city a whim had made him go first to a hotel, where, hearing of the entertainment going on at home, he had gotten himself into evening dress and arrived at the last moment, when his sisters, already in the box with Rosalind and other guests, were waiting, momently, for the curtain to rise on the first act in the play. It would not do to interrupt them now. Greetings must wait. Anyhow, they were not missing him. Several men were in the box with them, giving attention and receiving it. He remembered he had told Rosalind he should not care how much she flirted, and she was taking him at his word. The blue eyes as they looked upward to the dark-eyed man bending so eagerly to them, were very tender and languishing, and many a lover might have been jealous, but Charley Bonair was not conscious of a pang. Although he felt a certain pride and sense of proprietorship in her beauty, he did not mind the other fellow’s palpable admiration. The chief thing that worried him now was that he was haunted by other eyes--brown eyes, soft with love, brown eyes, flashing with anger, always brown eyes! “Eyes it were wiser by far to forget.” Again he stifled a long-drawn sigh, and glanced at the curtain, for the blare of the orchestra had begun, and presently the play would be on. He remembered just then to look at the elegant program the usher had thrust into his hand. He had barely time to see that the play was entitled “A Wayside Flower,” when the orchestra ceased, and the curtain rolled up, showing the first scene. He caught his breath with a gasp, and rubbed his eyes with a bewildered hand, then looked again to see if his vision had played him false. CHAPTER X. A TRAGEDY OF LOVE. One easily guesses that “A Wayside Flower” was the story of a young girl--beautiful, but poor. The rich hero’s fancy turned from his betrothed, the proud beauty, his equal in wealth and station, to the simple village maiden. With all the arts of love he wooed her for his own.