continuous. In the wings they tried to get her to go out and bow, but she refused. The sound grew more imperious, but she was firm. Mr. Paxton had not told her to take any encores. The applause intended for her nearly spoiled the Naomi tableau, a fact which Miss Morton did not forgive. The show went on.

Jane sat back with a sigh. Presently she saw Jerry come into the ante-room to look for her. He hurried over, when he spied her, and seized her hands.

"You played a nice trick on me! You were the best yet. Why didn't you come out and take your curtain?"

"You didn't tell me to."

"Oh, Jane, Jane, you bluffer!"

"May I go home now, or do you want me later?"

"I should say I do want you later. I'll give you the sign for your entrance."

He left her and she sat there a long time watching the others. One or two "fellow artists" congratulated her upon her success, but most of them just looked at her with interest. Finally Jerry came again.

"All right now. The dancers are just beginning. Slip around them somehow, get to the throne steps, and sit there watching them, until the show is over. Wait; now this is a good time."

She started on. At sight of her there was great applause. She wove in and out among the dancers, watching them superciliously, seeming at moments to be a part of the dance. She was every inch royal, and wicked. Before the throne she bowed low, then threw herself, full length, before it, her chin on her palm, her elbow on the throne step. While she languidly watched the dancing, the audience watched her.

"I'll be damned," said Jerry, softly, watching her, too.

When the last tableau was finished, Herod and his women left the throne, to join the audience. Everybody in the crowd which surrounded them spoke to Jane, congratulating her upon her success. Mrs. Brendon, seeing this, presented clamouring admirers, always mentioning her as a great friend of Mr. Jerry Paxton's. On all sides they declared it to be the most successful pageant of the season.

"Who is Mr. Jerry Paxton?" people demanded.

"Don't you know him? Why, he's a genius! He's a portrait painter, one of the coming ones. I have commissioned him to paint me, in this costume he designed for me," was Mrs. Brendon's unchanging answer. Jane noticed that it always made an impression.

"Why, Mr. Christiansen, what are you doing here?" Mrs. Brendon demanded of a giant of a man who approached them.

"I came to see what you vandals would do to the prophets," he replied.

"We've done very well by them, don't you think?" she laughingly inquired.

"Some of them seemed to me a trifle decadent, I confess."

"The Old Testament is decadent, if you come to that."

"So? Elemental, I should say, rather than decadent."

"What's the difference? They're both naughty."

He laughed and indicated Jane.

"May I be presented to Salome?"

"Miss Judd, this is Mr. Martin Christiansen," she said.

"You know your Oscar Wilde, Miss Judd," he said.

"Miss Judd substituted at the last moment," Mrs. Brendon said. "Wasn't it wonderful of her?"

"It was because I knew the Wilde Salome that I was able to do it at all."

"You are an actress?"

"Oh, no. I'm—I'm not anything."

"Excuse me; yours was the only distinguished impersonation to-night. You made these beautiful dolls worth enduring," he said in a low tone.

"Oh!" breathed Jane, looking at him directly, to be sure he wasn't laughing at her, then hastily gazing toward Mrs. Brendon, to make sure she had not heard him. But that great lady had swept on.

"Who is Jerry Paxton?"

"Every one asks that. Mrs. Brandon says,—" Here she gave so perfect an imitation of Mrs. Brendon's words and manner that Christiansen laughed heartily.

"So, he is a painter. I seem to remember him faintly. Is he a good painter?"

"I'm not a critic."

"You like him—the man, I mean?"

"Why—I don't know. I'm sorry for him, rather."

"He doesn't look an object to inspire pity, Miss Salome. He seems to be a brilliant sort of person."

"Yes, I know, but he's so sort of unprotected, like a little boy."

"So that's why you're sorry for him? That's akin to saying that you're sorry for all men."

"I am, rather, and all women."

He looked at her keenly, and she gave him her eyes directly.

"You don't look a misogynist."

"I am tremendously interested in life, but I feel always a little sorry for all of us who are trying to live it. Don't you?"

"Yes, but I'm old enough to be sorry for us, and you are not."

"I'm rather old," she said; then, as he laughed, she joined him. She was nearer happy than she had ever been. She was having a real conversation with a man she liked.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"In a queer sort of place, a tenement house down on——You ought to know who I am. I don't belong here at all," she added.