Farnham lounged in the second chair, leaning back in affected carelessness with one arm resting negligently upon the railing, but there came into his pale face a sudden glow of appreciation as he swept his cool eyes over the trim figure, the flushed countenance there confronting him.

A realization of her fresh womanly fairness came over him with such suddenness as to cause the man to draw his breath quickly, his eyes darkening with passion.
"By thunder, Lizzie, but you are actually developing into quite a beauty!" he exclaimed with almost brutal frankness.

"Life on the stage appears to agree with you; or was it joy at getting rid of me ?" She did not move from where she had taken her first stand against the background of curtains, nor did the expression upon her face change.
"I presume you did not send for me merely for the purpose of compliment," she remarked, quietly.
"Well, no; not exactly," and the man laughed with assumed recklessness in an evident effort to appear perfectly at ease.

"I was simply carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment.

I was always, as you will remember, something of a connoisseur regarding the charms of the sex, and you have certainly improved wonderfully.