Now, when a young man, in whatever wayward mood of petulance or defiance or wounded self-love, chooses to play tricks with his own fate, he is pretty sure to discover that sooner or later he has himself to reckon with—­his other and saner self that will arise and refuse to be silenced.  And this awakening came almost directly to Lionel Moore.  Even as he went down to the theatre that same evening, he began to wonder whether Miss Burgoyne would really be wearing the ring he had given her.  Or would she not rather consider the whole affair a joke?—­not a very clever joke, indeed, but at least something to be put on one side and forgotten.  She had been inclined to laugh at the idea of two people becoming engaged to each other in the middle of the London streets.  A life-pledge offered and accepted in front of a window in Piccadilly!—­why, such was the way of comic opera, not of the actual world.  Jests of that kind were all very well in the theatre, but they were best confined to the stage.  And would not Miss Burgoyne understand that on a momentary impulse he had yielded to a fit of half-sullen recklessness, and would she not be quite ready and willing to release him?

But when, according to custom, he went into her room that evening, he soon became aware that Miss Burgoyne did not at all treat this matter as a jest.

“See!” she said to him, with a becoming shyness—­and she showed him how cleverly she had covered her engagement-ring with a little band of flesh-tinted india-rubber, “No one will be able to see it? and I sha’n’t have to take it off at all.  Why, I could play Galatea, and not a human being would notice that the statue was wearing a ring!”

She seemed very proud and pleased and happy, though she spoke in an undertone, for Jane was within earshot.  As for him, he did not say anything.  Of course he was bound to stand by what he had done and suffer the consequences, whatever they might be.  When he left the room and went up-stairs into the wings, it was in a vague sort of stupefaction; but here were the immediate exigencies of the stage, and perhaps it was better not to look too far ahead.

But it was with just a little sense of shame that he found, when the piece was over, and they were ready to leave the theatre, that Miss Burgoyne expected him to accompany her on her way home.  If only he had had sufficient courage, he might have said to her,

“Look here; we are engaged to be married, and I’m not going to back out; I will fulfil my promise whenever you please.  But for goodness’ sake don’t expect me to play the lover—­off the stage as well as on.  Sweethearting is a silly sort of business; don’t we have enough every evening before the footlights?  Let us conduct ourselves as rational human creatures—­when we’re not paid to make fools of ourselves.  What good will it do if I drive home with you in this hansom?  Do you expect me to put my arm round your waist?  No, thanks; there isn’t much novelty in that kind of thing for Grace Mainwaring and Harry Thornhill.”