“To see views?”

“Yes.  I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, ’scarped and jagged and rifted,’ and all other kinds.  I’ve seen so many grand landscapes, I never want to see another.  I want to stay at the Branch or the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night.  And you know papa will go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one kind or another.”

Jack couldn’t help laughing; but they were now among the little crush that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some third party.

“Why, Max, when did you get home?”

“To-day’s steamer.”  Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry words and smiles that blended in Kitty’s ears with the dreamy music, the rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.

But that three minutes’ interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan, though she did not yet realize it.  The stranger had touched her as she had never been touched before.  His magnetic voice called something into being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold.  She became suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore, saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max Raymond.

It gave him a moment’s bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then he sincerely hoped Max might win her.  Yet he could not have told whether he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty’s right hand, and take possession of Kitty’s eyes and ears and heart.  But there is a great deal of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than might have been expected.

For once Kitty did not do all the talking.  Max talked, and she listened; Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she submitted.  It was not Jack’s Kitty at all.  He was quite relieved when she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.

But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening—­those grand old Romans walking on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.

She was in love’s land for about three hours; then she had to come back into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable stone houses.  But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old radiant, careless Kitty.

“Well, pussy, what of the play?” asked Tom Duffan; “you cut ——­’s criticism short this morning.  Now, what is yours?”

“Oh, I don’t know papa.  The play was Shakespeare’s, and Booth and Barrett backed him up handsomely.”