"Good heavens, Kathleen! do you really mean it?"
"Yes, I do, Alpine. This Prince Karl—this Ralph Chainey—is my rescuer at Newport last summer. Watch him, Alpine, and perhaps you will catch him looking at us a little consciously, as I did just now."
"I see the likeness now!" answered Alpine, in a tone of suppressed dismay, whose import Kathleen could not understand. She said no more to her step-sister, but sat through the remainder of the play in a blissful dream.
The beautiful young heiress was intensely romantic, and for long months her fancy had been haunted by the image of the handsome young man who had saved her life. To find him again in the handsome young actor whose name was on every lip thrilled her with delight. He had recognized her, too, and the memory of his startled glance, so quickly withdrawn, thrilled her with keen delight, although he did not permit her to meet his eyes again.
Kathleen felt a little triumph, too, over Alpine, who had declared that her hero was doubtless a mere nobody—perhaps a clerk in a country store, than which position Alpine's contemptuous ideas could not descend lower.
Alpine was watching him now with such eager interest that Kathleen smiled and thought:
"I believe Alpine has fallen in love with him, herself. But she need not; he is mine, mine, mine!"
She was claiming him already in her thoughts, forgetting that she had never even spoken to the handsome stranger to whom she owed such a debt of gratitude. It seemed to her that she was as dear to him as he was to her, and she almost expected to see him waiting to hand her to her carriage when they left the theater.
But no; the faint, fluttering hope was soon extinguished. Other admirers were waiting obsequiously, eager for the honor of touching the small gloved hand of the beautiful belle, but when the curtain dropped on Prince Karl bowing to the applauding audience, Kathleen saw him no more that night.