The curtain was lowered a few feet. Above "Dancing!" the crowd now read:
FREE OF CHARGE!
Everybody started for the floor.
H. R. left the stage and walked into the Goodchild box. Grace had been receiving congratulations all the evening until she had convinced herself that this was her dinner. It was all H. R. could do to force his way through the plutocracy in the Imperial Box. Talking to Grace at the same time were three young men who never before had accepted Mrs. Goodchild's invitations to marry Grace. But Grace was now the most-talked-of girl in all New York. And she was officially very beautiful and Goodchild père was not enough. And Grace was very kind to all of them. All empresses are kindly when they haven't Dyspepsia or Dynamite Dreams. All unpleasant things seem to begin with a "D." There is Death and Damnation; also Duty.
Mr. Goodchild frowned when he saw H. R. in the box. But when he saw that H. R. never even looked at him he became really angry.
Mrs. Goodchild looked alarmed and hissed, "Don't you talk to him, Grace!"
Grace, knowing herself desired by the most eligible young men in her set, decided to squelch H. R. in public. H. R., however, walked past everybody, looking neither to left nor right. Feeling themselves treated as so many chairs or hat-racks, the élite of New York began to feel like intruders.
Then, as an imperial mandate is given, H. R. said to Miss Goodchild:
"We're needed!"