“Oh, I am going home with Miss Burgoyne,” the young lady answered.

But here Miss Burgoyne herself appeared, coming forth in the full splendor of Grace Mainwaring’s bridal attire and with all her radiant witcheries of make-up, and the poor lad sitting there, who had never before been so near this vision of delight, seemed quite entranced by its (strictly speaking) superhuman loveliness.  He could not take his eyes away from her.  He did not think of joining in the conversation.  He watched her at the mirror; he watched her making tea; he watched her munching a tiny piece of bread and butter (which was imprudent on her part, after the care she had bestowed on her lips); and always he was silent and spellbound.  Miss Burgoyne, on the other hand, was talkative enough.

“Isn’t it an awful night!” she exclaimed.  “I thought the cab I came down in would be blown over.  And they say it’s getting worse and worse.  I hear there has been a dreadful accident; some of the men were telling Jane about it; have you heard, Mr. Moore?—­something about a scaffold.  I suppose this theatre is safe enough; I don’t feel any shaking.  But I know I shall be so nervous going home to-night—­I dread it already—­”

“Miss Ingram says she is going home with you,” Lionel pointed out, carelessly.

“But that is worse!” the prima-donna cried.  “Two women are worse than one—­they make each other nervous; no, what you want is a man’s bluntness of perception—­his indifference—­and the sense of security you get from his being there.  Two frightened women; how are they going to keep each other’s courage up?”

It was clearly an invitation; almost a challenge.  Lionel only said,

“Why, what have you to fear!  The blowing over of a cab is about the last thing likely to happen.  If you were walking along the pavement, you might be struck by a falling slate; but you are out in the middle of the road.  If you go home in a four-wheeled cab, you will be as safe as you are at this minute in this room.”

She turned away from him; at the same moment the pale young gentleman said, rather breathlessly,

“Miss Burgoyne, if you would permit me to accompany you and Miss Ingram home, I should esteem it a great honor—­and—­and pleasure.”

She whipped round in an instant.

“Oh, thank you, Percy—­Mr. Miles, I mean,” she added, in pretty confusion.  “That will be so kind of you.  We shall be delighted, I’m sure—­very kind of you indeed.”

No more was said at the moment, for Miss Burgoyne had been called; and Lionel, as he wended his way to the wings, could only ask himself,

“What is she up to now?  She calls me Mr. Moore before her friends, and him Percy, and she contrives to put him into the position of rescuing two distressed damsels.  Well, what does it matter?  I suppose women are like that.”

But Mr. Percival Miles’s accompanying those two young ladies through the storm did matter to him, in another way, and seriously.  When, the performance being over, he got into evening dress and drove along in a hansom to the Garden Club, he found there two or three of the young gentlemen who were in the habit of lounging about the supper-room, glancing at illustrated papers or chewing toothpicks, until the time for poker had arrived.