To the mute, to the inexorable place,

Istar, daughter of Sin, inclined her head,

She wearied of a bitter love, she passed, she was gone.

In the sad, in the empty place,

With the darkness that is blind to the sun,

In the country where the stars are dead,

She covered her face.

John Hall Wheelock.

THE DIFFERENCE.

I

She was alone in the box, alone and apparently unconscious of the glasses focused upon her, the stares, the elaborately cordial bows, the confidential and sympathetic whispers which had begun to vibrate in almost an electrical manner as soon as she had entered the operahouse. She sat facing the stage, half turned from the audience, and held near her cheek a dowdy little black fan, ostensibly to lessen the glare, in reality to protect herself from the interest evoked by recent journalistic notoriety.

It was her first public appearance since the divorce. She had learnt that morning from a friend, whose devotion consisted in keeping her in touch with everything "people were saying," that her husband had sailed on the "Cedric" the day before, and that Mrs. Bayard Winship's name had appeared on the same passenger list. She had received this interesting bit of news with a calm that had astonished and secretly disappointed its benevolent bearer. In fact Mrs. Fox had remarked at the door to the recipient's sister, "My dear, I'm frightened! She simply looked at her rings and said 'Indeed!' It's not natural, Mrs. Porter, it's-it's inhuman!"

On going up-stairs Mrs. Porter found her sister putting on her furs and ordering the brougham. "I'm going out driving," she had announced. "No, Rose, you needn't come. I want to show them all how little I care. Somehow I never could before, but now I shall take your advice." And much to the surprise of her coachman, her few acquaintances, and the many who now knew her by sight and reputation, she alighted at Sherry's and ordered an elaborate luncheon at a conspicuous table. She tried to smile unconcernedly as she toyed with the several courses, and to bow to any remembered faces "as if nothing had happened as if nothing had happened," she kept repeating to herself, over and over again. But when she went to the dressing-room to put on her coat, and saw in a chance mirror the ghastly contrast of her cheerful expression with her pale, raddled face, the big blue pouches under her heavy eyes, and her thin hair, streaked with gray, she gave up trying; and so, as she settled herself in the box, the little black fan prevented the curious from commenting on her misery.

The opera had been an after-thought; but she knew that "Tristan" and Nordica would cause half a column of names in to-morrow's paper. And then she wanted to show them all how little she cared. So she sat huddled together in her chair and tried to listen. Usually she found music "restful," and her rare departures from the big, quiet and wellordered home had been, as a rule, to the Metropolitan and Carnegie Hall. She was in no sense a musician, but music seemed to express for her many of the qualities which her dumb and curiously repressed nature struggled vainly to utter.

On this particular afternoon, however, she was unable to concentrate her attention. She closed her eyes and denied admittance to every foreign thought. But they entered in spite of her, searing her mind as they came and went, beating down her opposition till at last she was at their mercy, and they swept unchecked upon her.

To the accompaniment of languorous and beautiful music, the newspaper headlines lanced her again in all their hateful vividness. She remembered the callous look on his handsome, still boyish face when

she had announced her intention to prosecute. That was the last time she had seen him; afterwards he had lived at his club. She recalled for the hundredth time every word of the few, short, cruel sentences he had so politely addressed to her before he made his final bow; the sound of the door closing after him. She had watched him from the drawing room window until he turned the corner-how jauntily he swung his cane!-and she remembered how white the butler's face seemed to her, the first thing she saw as she regained consciousness. Then the long dull nightmare of waiting; and the trial; and the innumerable pictures of Mrs. Bayard Winship, née Tottie Schwartz, on every news-stand, in all varieties of costume, from tights to a dinnergown. Then they had told her Winship was gaining a divorce, as a result of her own suit; and she had said, "Is he?" It was the morning she had gone out driving for the first time. She remembered that drive. And now they had sailed for Europe together. Jack had always enjoyed Paris, and Mrs. Winship had lived there at one period of her short, but eventful career. Oh, they would get along very well, Paris was delightful in the spring, quite delightful!-Her fan was trembling a little, but she did not notice it. She wondered if he would marry the woman, and was surprised to find how little she cared. She had thought-there was a crash from the orchestra and she shut her eyes more tightly. As it died away in long, molten cadences she heard whispers in the next box.

"Oh, yes, that's she!" It was a girl's voice, full of shallow satisfaction.

"Quite a Wagnerite! You can fairly hear her listen!" a man returned.

"She must be cold as a frog! To come here when the 'Cedric' sailed yesterday morning! I call it in the worst taste!" Mrs. Graliame shivered as she recognized the speaker.

"Shh! She'll hear you!" warned the girl.

"Not she! Too much interested in Nordica!"

"If she'd been a little more interested in something besides Wagner and housekeeping she'd have gotten on better. A man can't”

"Now don't be naughty!" whispered the girl, rather affectionately than otherwise.

As his chuckle reached Mrs. Grahame's ears she rose suddenly, unable to listen further. In conscience-stricken silence the occupants of the next box watched her look about half-timidly, as if already regretting her action. Then she stopped to pick up the handkerchief which had fallen from her lap, and quickly turned to the door, without glancing in the speakers' direction.

"She heard us!" said the girl. "It's a shame!"

"I'll bet her ears were burning!" remarked the man with a grin, and just then the great curtain came down and the music stopped. "What a relief!" he added, thankfully.

Mrs. Grahame almost ran down the corridor of the boxes to the foyer. People were beginning to come out, the lights had been turned

She experienced a blind and dreadful terror; to be remarked by one more person seemed more than she could bear; the nervous strain which had brought her to the place was rapidly giving way. Her one instinct was to gain the open air. Somebody spoke to her as she crossed the foyer, brushing by the groups of beautifully-dressed and chattering women. She did not answer, and took the opportunity of a small and rarely used staircase to escape. There was a sharp turn at the landing. In her hurry she did not see a man who was coming up, and, as she raised her hand to pull down her veil, ran directly against him.

"I beg your pardon," said the man, with instinctive and absentminded politeness. Then, after a second glance, he added, half to himself, "Mrs. Grahame!"

She looked at him with blurred eyes. "Oh, it's you!" was her helpless whisper.

He bowed slightly and very formally, turning to let her pass. But she did not take advantage of his action; instead, she was clinging to the railing with both hands.

He came a step nearer. solicitude.

"You're ill!" he exclaimed with some

She braced herself and raised her head with a little smile. "If you'd be so kind as to bring me a glass of water, Mr. Winship. I found it so hot up-stairs."

"Yes, certainly. Sit down on the step, Mrs. Grahame. It'll be all right. Everybody goes up and down the main staircase." He disappeared rapidly in the direction of the foyer.

She was sitting as he told her, too tired to think, only realizing that she was in an awkward position, which both temperament and training combined to keep her from meeting adequately. She began to rebel against the chance that had thrown them together, and finally rose to go before he should return. But the giddiness came again before she had taken two steps and she sat down miserably. Her head throbbed and whirled. Some instinct prevented her from burying her; face in her hands; she feared she might be seen. The voice of a boy crying in a loud, expressionless tone, "Librettos! Librettos! Librettos of the opera! English and German words!" gradually dinned itself into her consciousness; but she realized that it had been going on for some time. Just then Winship came back with a glass in one hand, smelling-salts in the other.

"Here's the water," he announced, "and the attendant lent me...

these."

She drank a little in silence and then inhaled the salts, while he stood gravely beside her.

"I'm all right now," she said, looking up at him with a faint smile, "and thank you very much."

"You must let me see you to your carriage." Then she noticed ; that he had his coat over his arm.

"Thank you, no. I don't want to keep you, and I think I hear the -music. I can do very well by myself. Good-bye." She turned to go after a constrained little bow. He watched her to the bottom of the stairs, where she tripped, and, had it not been for her close hold on the banister, would have fallen. He was at her side almost before she could recover.

"You really must let me," he commanded, and offered his arm. →