As soon as the curtain fell Mathison stood up and plowed his way out to the aisle. Once in the aisle, he rushed to the foyer, where he demanded the way to the managerial office. His uniform was open sesame.

The producing manager, a dapper, bright-eyed Jew, happened to be in, and he was outlining a campaign for his press agent when Mathison burst in.

"I am Lieutenant-Commander John Mathison," he announced, a bit out of breath for his run up the stairs.

"What\'s the difficulty?" asked the manager, coolly. "Anchor afoul my unlighted sign?"

Mathison laughed. He understood at once that here was a good sport. "Pardon my abruptness," he apologized. "I\'d like to use your telephone."

The manager waved his hand. He heard Mathison\'s side of the conversation.

[Pg 199]

"Mathison. What\'s the report from Fiftieth Street?... The woman still inside? Thanks.... No, that\'s all." Mathison hung up the receiver dreamily.

"What\'s happened?" asked Rubin, ironically. "Have we sunk the German fleet?"

"We are going to," said Mathison. "I want a messenger the quickest way I can get him."

"War stuff?" thrilled in spite of his resentment at the intrusion. Rubin was an autocrat in the theatrical world.

"Well, I don\'t believe you\'d call it that. I want to get some flowers."

The manager sank back. "You sailors! I thought maybe a submarine was loose outside!" He was going to add a sting, when a boot came into contact with his shin, a sign that the alert press agent had something on his mind. "Flowers!"

"I have come ten thousand miles to send these flowers," replied Mathison, smiling.

"Get a head usher, Klein," said the manager, secretly bubbling. What a humdinger for the morning papers! As the press agent vanished, Rubin turned to Mathison. "You may send flowers, but not across the lights. I will not break that rule for anybody."

[Pg 200]

"So long as she gets them. May I write a note?"

The manager got up and indicated his chair. "Write as many as you like. I take it that the flowers are for Miss Farrington."

"They are."

"Do you know her?" curiously.

"I do." The smile was still on Mathison\'s lips.

"In that case, go ahead. But if it happens that she doesn\'t recall you, your posies will go directly to the ash-can. She isn\'t easy to know."

"I know her," insisted Mathison.

"I rather wish, though, that you would put this off until to-morrow night. Miss Farrington will be very tired. She\'s done a fine and generous thing—gone on without rest, after an unbroken journey from the other side of the world."

"No one is better aware of that than I. She will see me."

Rubin knew confidence when he saw it.

He twisted his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. A vigorous, unusual chap, this, and handsome enough to wake up The Farrington. Ten thousand miles! Her aloofness toward men was now [Pg 201]accounted for. An old affair nobody had heard of. There was an ominous portent in this affair for Broadway. She was the loyalest of the loyal; she\'d stick to her contract. But after!

Mathison settled down to his note. Each time he balled up a piece of paper and flung it into the waste-basket Rubin frowned.

The press agent came storming back, an usher in tow. The latter was given fifty dollars and ordered to purchase Parma violets.

"No tinfoil, no tinsel strings, no bouquet; loose, as they came from the soil. Carry this note and the flowers to Miss Farrington\'s dressing-room. And here is something for your trouble." To the manager he said, "Thanks for your courtesy."

"You\'re as welcome as the spring."

"Oh, boy!" cried the press agent as the door closed behind Mathison. "In a dead world like this! A real yarn, no faking. Did you lamp the roll he dragged out? That was real money, all yellows. Think of it! Our Norma, a navy man, ten thousand miles, flowers, a wad of yellows! She\'ll set up a holler. Pass the buck to me. I\'ll be the goat with the cheerfulest smile ever!"

[Pg 202]

"Klein, we sha\'n\'t use this."

"What?" barked the press agent.

"No. It\'s real. This is no Johnny. Norma is no chorus beauty. Of course, I jumped at the idea, but we\'ll have to pass it up. I wouldn\'t lose Norma\'s genuine affection for me for a million three-sheets, free of charge. No. Lock it up and forget it."

"Well, what do you know about that?"

Mathison returned to his seat, apologizing to every one so courteously and agreeably that even the men forgave him. He was quite calm now. All incertitude was gone; he knew. The Yellow Typhoon was in a house in Fiftieth Street, and Norma Farrington was yonder on the stage, delighting his eyes, thrilling his ears. The wonder of her! God bless her, she had tried to save Bob Hallowell that night! And he would never have known but for that posed photograph!

She did not wear any of the flowers in the second act, nor in the third; but when she came on in the fourth she carried a small bouquet in her corsage. She was Joyousness. It radiated from her into the audience. Faces all over the house were [Pg 203]beaming, not with merriment, but with good humor.

There came a little moment when throats became stuffy—one of those flashes of tenderness whose link is generally laughter. When the whole house was watching the comédienne tensely, in absolute silence, Mathison laughed aloud, joyously! Heads swinging resentfully in his direction woke him up. His cheeks flushed.

Doubtless by this time you have formed the impression that Mathison had lost his compass, that he was drifting, that he had forgotten the vital business which had brought him all these thousands of miles. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All these little eddies, currents, whirlpools were at the sides of the stream, that flowed on, impervious, inevitable.

For a man whose soul was in haste he took his time. His movements within the theater and outside in the lobby were leisurely. On the street he made no effort to bore through. But when he reached the corner he was off like a shot toward the dark alley which led to the stage door. This he plunged through recklessly—into the arms of the ancient Cerberus who tended the door.

[Pg 204]

"Outside, outside! The comic opera has went!"

Mathison presented his card. "Miss Farrington is expecting me."

"Oh, she is, huh? Well, she said nothin\' to me about it."

"I\'ll wait."

"You\'re welcome; but in the alley, admiral, in the alley. Nobody gits by me to-night, comin\' in. Orders."

"I don\'t suppose ten dollars would interest you in the least."

"Not unless I saw it. Honest, now, are you meetin\' Miss Farrington?"

"I am. I\'ll be peaceful, Tirpitz; but if you send for the stage-hands, I\'m likely to shoot up the place."

"All right. I\'ll take it in two fives."

Mathison discovered that he was now free to walk about as he pleased, so long as he did not amble in the direction of the dressing-rooms. He anchored himself by the wall, from where he could see all who came down the narrow iron staircase. The draughty, musty, painty odors were to him like perfumed amber from Araby.

By and by two women came down. They went past Mathison without taking any[Pg 205] notice of him. They were followed shortly by a man whom Mathison recognized as the conceited ass who made love to Miss Farrington in the play.

A row of lights overhead went out. The stage was now in a kind of twilight. I wonder if there is a sadder place than a stage when the actors have left it to the tender mercies of scene-shifters, carpenters, and electricians? To Mathison it was only the door to Ali Baba\'s cave.

At length—thirty minutes, to be exact—a woman came down the stairs slowly. A veil was wrapped about her face and hair. But Mathison would have recognized that sable coat anywhere. He stepped forward shakily and took off his cap.

"I suppose it\'s still snowing outside?" casually.

"What we sailors call thick weather." No questions; just an ordinary, every-day query about the weather. No confusion. "You are not afraid to shake hands?"

"I don\'t know just what to do."

"Oh, I\'d return the hand." His laughter rocked the lurking echoes above.

And something in that laughter made her afraid of him, of herself.

[Pg 206]

"Where in the world did you find all those violets—loose, the way I love them?" She did not give him time to answer. "My car is at the end of the alley. Where shall we go? I\'m going to give you a half-hour.... I suppose it was written."

"That I should find you? Yes."

"I like the way you say that." Had the porter betrayed her? And yet the porter could not have betrayed anything beyond the fact that she, not Berta, had given him that box. Some unforeseen stroke of luck; certainly not that feather. He was no brother to the Cum?an Sibyl. Still, he had found her. She was tremendously curious to learn how. On the other hand, she was determined to ask him no questions and, as adroitly as she could, evade his. If he persisted, she would cut the meeting short. Some day—if she ever saw him again—she would tell him the story. She was too weary to-night. She was at once happy and miserable; happy because it was as though his finding her had been written, miserable because the sordid dénouement might break at any moment. To save Berta, not for Berta\'s sake, but for the mother\'s.

[Pg 207]

She knew that she was beautiful, that she possessed extraordinary talent in attracting men, though she had never used it. She knew what power lay in expression, in vocal music. She might have made this man love her. For if he had not been drawn to her through some mysterious forces, why had he sought her? Those flowers! There were gall and wormwood in this cup, but she drank it with a smile. Romance, and she must let it go by!

What had he learned within these four short hours? That she was not The Yellow Typhoon, certainly. Had there been a cable from that man Morgan, after his solemn promise? The gray wig and the goggles....

"What did you say?"

"That we had better be moving. You take me wherever you think best."

"Give me your arm. It will be slippery in the alley. There\'s an umbrella in the corner by the door. Take it."

Outside, he put up the umbrella; and as she took his arm she knocked against something heavy and hard in his pocket.

"What is that?"

"Part of a sailor\'s paraphernalia."

[Pg 208]

"It is not over yet?" with sudden suspicion.

"No. There are a few threads that need picking up."

The metal in his voice did not escape her. She was puzzled, for, logically, all his land adventures should be over.

It was only a short distance to the restaurant, which was a famous one.

She selected it tactfully, solely on his account. She herself had never been inside of it before in the evening. But she knew a good deal about men, that even so nice a one as this fresh-skinned, blue-eyed sailorman would not object to having his vanity played up to. There was another kind of thought besides in her mind. The night would be far more memorable if there was a background of color and movement and music. She was weak enough to want him always to remember this night.

The moment she took off her veil and coat she was recognized. That is the penalty of theatrical fame in New York. The head waiter passed the word, and the people at the near-by tables stared and whispered; and Mathison wouldn\'t have been human if he ............