dulcie had plotted it all for her own personal entertainment. like a mad king of bavaria she commanded the actors before her. she had caught sight of sheila, and she

knew who bret was from the descriptions of him. she had a grudge against sheila on general principles and another against eldon for not going mad over her.

eldon had received no answer to the note he sent sheila denying his part in the newspaper notoriety. this had rankled in his heart. bret still believed that the note

was a lie and an effort to keep a hook on sheila. he loved eldon less than ever.

there was a longing for battle in both the big hearts, and each would have been glad to beat the other down before the whole crowd; yet, because of the crowd, neither

could strike.

sheila guessed at once that dulcie had planned it; the cat was overacting her r?le of surprise and regret, as her little heart thrilled to see the two men braced in

scarlet confusion and sheila fluttering between them.

bret endured a year of compressed agony. the foolishness of resuming the fight, the foolishness of not resuming it, the inextricable tangle of contradictory duties and

impulses, shattered him. eldon was undergoing the same return to chaos.

yet the crowd shoving past observed nothing and did not pause. bret felt sheila’s hand clasp his arm both to protect and to be protected, and she urged him on. then

he managed to bow with formality to eldon and to dulcie. and so the great rencounter ended. dulcie alone was made happy.

sheila could not let her get away with that baby stare. she smiled with pretended amusement and said, “thank you ever so much, miss ormerod.”

“thank me for what?” gasped dulcie. but sheila just twinkled her eyes and smiled as she walked on.

her muscles were tired for half an hour with the effort that smile cost them.

she led bret to the box, and he was shivering with the unsatisfied emotions of a fighter for the battle missed. sheila sank into a chair exhausted. she looked about

anxiously. the one thing needed to complete the situation was for eldon to walk into the next box and spend the rest of the afternoon. they were spared this

coincidence.

bret was in no mood to remain, but she kept him there. there would be some distraction at least in the spectacle. if they went back to their hotel they would have only

their bitterness to chew upon.

the auction of the autographed program began. there was excited bidding from all parts of the house. but bret kept silent. the program brought five hundred dollars.

bret sneered at the price of the trash.

a musical number came next. the orchestra struck up a tune that would have set gravestones to jigging. a platoon of young men and women in fantastic bravery was flung

across the stage, singing and caracoling. a famous buffoon waddled to the footlights and beamed like a new red moon with its chin on the horizon. he was a master of

the noble art of tomfoolery and the high-school of horse-play. he probed into the childhood core of every heart, and no grief could resist him.

sheila forgot to be dismal and tried to look solemn for bret’s sake till she saw that he was overpowered, too. he began to grin, to sniff, to snort, to shake, to

roll, to guffaw. he laughed till tears poured down his cheeks. sheila laughed in a dual joy. everything solemn, ugly, hateful, dignified, had become foolish and

childish; and foolishness had become the one great wisdom of the world.

the jester always wins in a contest with the doldrums because philosophy and honor present riddles that cannot be solved. the mystery of fun is just as insoluble, but

you laugh while you wait.

sheila watched the thousands of people rocking and roaring in a surf of delight, and she watched her husband’s soul washed clean as a child’s heart. it was a noble

profession, this clownery; comedy was a priesthood.

suddenly she saw bret’s eyes, roving the hilarious multitude, pause and harden. she followed the line of his gaze across the space and saw eldon in a box. he was

laughing like a huge boy, putting back his head and baying the moon with yelps of delight.

she watched bret anxiously and saw a kind of forgiveness softening his glare. the contagion of laughter reinfected him and he laughed harder than ever. if eldon and he

had met now they would have leaned on each other to laugh. music and buffoonery and grief are the universal languages that everybody understands.

the excerpt from the comic opera was succeeded by a little play, and now the audience, shaken from its trenches by the artillery of laughter, was helpless before the

pathos. the handkerchiefs fluttered like little white flags everywhere. sheila saw through her tears that bret was swallowing hard; a tear rolled out on his cheek, and

he was ashamed to brush it off. it splashed on his finger and startled him. he looked at sheila, and she smiled at him with ineffable tenderness. he reached out and

took her hand.

in that mood a swift understanding could have been reached with eldon. sheila might almost have forgiven dulcie. but they did not meet. as they left the opera house,

pleasantly fatigued with the exercise of every emotion, she felt immensely contented.

but the inevitable reaction followed. in this wonderful work of the stage, why was she idle? why was she skulking at a distance when her training, her gifts, her

ambitions, called her to do her share—to make people glad and sad and wise in sympathy? why? why? why?

two years later there was another baby—a daughter, its mother’s exquisite miniature. there was some bad luck for sheila on this occasion, and the physician warned

her against further child-bearing for several years. she was not up and about so soon as before, and a vague haze of melancholy settled about her. she took less

interest in life.

her laughter was not half so frequent or so clear; her mischief of satire was gone. she smiled on bret more tenderly than ever, but it was tenderness rather than

amusement. she had nerve-storms and idled about incessantly, and sometimes, with no apparent reason or warning, she would sigh frantically, leap to her feet, and pace

the floor or the porch or the lawn aimlessly. when bret anxiously asked her what was the matter she would gaze at him with sorrowful eyes and that doleful effort at a

smile and say:

“nothing, honey; nothing at all.”

“but you’re not happy?”

“yes, i am, dear. why shouldn’t i be? i have everything: my lover for my husband, my children, the home—everything.”

“everything,” he would groan, “except—”

then she would put her hands over his lips.