V + 

“Well?” I queried, when she had vanished. I was speaking under cover of the orchestra⁠—a courtesy title accorded a very ancient and very feeble piano. “Well, and what do you think of her⁠—of her looks, I means? Who cares for temperament in a woman!” + 

Charteris assumed a virtuous expression. “I don’t dare tell you,” said he; “you forget I am a married man.” + 

Then I frowned a little. I often resented Charteris’s flippant allusion to a wife whom I considered, with some reason, to be vastly too good for her husband. And I considered how near I had come to remaining with the others at Willoughby Hall⁠—for that new game they called bridge-whist! And I decided I would never care for bridge. How on earth could presumably sensible people be content to coop themselves in a drawing-room on a warm May evening, when hardly a mile away was a woman with perfectly unfathomable eyes and a voice which was a love-song? Of course, she couldn’t act, but, then, who wanted her to act? I indignantly demanded of my soul. + 

One simply wanted to look at her, and hear her speak. Charteris, with his prattle about temperament, was an ass; when a woman is born with such eyes and with a voice like that, she has done her full duty by the world, and has prodigally accomplished all one has the tiniest right to expect of her. + 

It was impossible she was in reality as beautiful as she seemed, because no woman was quite so beautiful as that; most of it was undoubtedly due to rouge and rice-powder and the footlights; but one could not be mistaken about the voice. And if her speech was that, what must her singing be! I thought; and in the outcome I remembered this reflection best of all. + 

I consulted my programme. It informed me, in large type at the end, that Juliet was “old Capulet’s daughter,” and that the part was played by Miss Annabelle Alys Montmorenci. + 

And I sighed. I admitted to myself that from a woman who wilfully assumed such a name little could be hoped. Still, I would like to see her off the stage⁠ ⁠… without all those gaudy fripperies and gewgaws⁠ ⁠… merely from curiosity.⁠ ⁠… Then too, they said those actresses were pretty gay.⁠ ⁠… + 