Jack arrived at the theatre just after Lyda had finished rehearsing a dance which she herself had arranged for the charity fête with Mrs. Van Esten's spoiled little girl.
Mademoiselle Pavoya was in her dressing room, he was told, and was expecting him. He went there quickly, afraid of being caught by someone he knew on the way, and forced to stop and talk nonsense, for the place was like a rabbit-warren—alive with pretty women and men who thought they were Society incarnate.
Lyda wore the swan costume she had worn the first night of their meeting—or one much like it; and the thought of that wonderful night thrilled him. How had he lived before that time? Yet he had gone out of her presence to doubt her truth, her honour! Never could he forgive himself for that, never could he worship her quite enough to make up for those hours of disloyalty.
She held out her hands to him, and he crushed first one then the other against his lips. "My Swan Goddess!" he exclaimed. "You're too marvellous like this. I can hardly believe you're flesh and blood—that I'm not dreaming you. I love you so much!"
She drew her hands away, and pushed him back when he would have taken her in his arms, wings and all.
"Perhaps you are dreaming me!" she smiled, "Dreaming the woman you think I am. And—you're not to do that! My hands only!"
"Yet you said you cared! You said you'd never felt for any man as you felt when our eyes first met."
"Ah, I said that when you'd confessed doubting me, and begged forgiveness, and vowed that nothing on earth or in heaven—or the other place—could ever make you doubt again. I owed you some confession in return."
"Then it was true?"
"Yes, it was true——"