The very shoulders under the heavy laces caught a plaintive droop, learned in no role of Marguerite in any land.

The red rose at her hair--the rose got from some mysterious source--half trembled.

Fear, a great fear--the first stage fright known in years--swept over Alice Strowbridge, late artist, and now woman.

There sat upon her soul a sense of unpreparedness for this new Public, this lone man from a mysterious land called Heart's Desire--a place where men, actual men, earnest men, were living, vaguely yearning for that which was not theirs.

She felt them gazing into her soul, asking how she had guarded the talents, how she had prized the jewels given her, what she had done for the heart of humanity.