For some reason he felt pleased and flattered by the enthusiasm of the audience.

In the half-light he looked about at the stalls and boxes and smiled a little consciously, recalling with amusement Sir Harry's judicial frown.

He was beginning to feel a keen interest in the slender, barefoot donkey-girl who slipped in and out of the play, singing, like some one winding through a hilly field.
He leaned forward and beamed felicitations as warmly as Mainhall himself when, at the end of the play, she came again and again before the curtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyes dancing and her eager, nervous little mouth tremulous with excitement.
When Alexander returned to his hotel--he shook Mainhall at the door of the theatre--he had some supper brought up to his room, and it was late before he went to bed.

He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne for years; indeed, he had almost forgotten her.

He had last written to her from Canada, after he first met Winifred, telling her that everything was changed with him--that he had met a woman whom he would marry if he could; if he could not, then all the more was everything changed for him.