Her faith was so serene, Stuart was reassured.
At the stage door he held her hand in parting and whispered:
"My soul and body will be yours to-night, dearie, remember that! I've permission from the manager to meet you behind the scenes after the last curtain. Be sure to wait a moment before you go to your dressing room."
"No, I'll see you in my room. I shall be so proud of it—the star's room for one night at least! The maid will show you the way."
"I will be in the Bivens's box, the second from the stage on the right. Don't forget to glance that way, now and then."
A look of pain clouded the fair face, but he could not see it in the shadows, and with a last warm pressure of her hand he was gone.
Harriet found to her joyous surprise her dressing room transformed into a bower of roses. A great bouquet of three dozen American beauties on her table bore her father's name and all the rest were from Stuart. She had a vague surmise that he paid for her father's, too. Every tint of rose that blooms he had sent, hiring an artist to arrange them so that their colouring made a veritable song of joy as she entered. There was no card to indicate who had sent these wonderful flowers, but she knew. There was only one man on earth who loved her well enough. Her heart gave a throb of daring joy at the thought! Surely such a token meant more than merely the big brotherly tenderness which he assumed so naturally. And then her heart sank with the certainty that he didn't mean it in the deep sense she wished. He called her 'dear,' and 'dearie,' and 'little pal' too glibly. He had always told her that he loved her too easily. What she wished was the speech that stammered and halted and uttered itself in broken, half-articulate syllables because there were no words in the human language to express its meaning.
She buried her golden head in a huge bunch of white roses the artist had placed in the centre of the room, drinking their perfume for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
"I wonder if he does think of me still as a child?" she mused. "I wonder if he never suspects the storm within? Well——"
She smiled triumphantly.