Laura found time to be astonished. What! She had first met this man
haughtily, in all the panoply of her "grand manner," and had
promised herself that she would humble him, and pay him for that
first mistrustful stare at her. And now, behold, she was studying
him, and finding the study interesting. Out of harmony though she
knew him to be with those fine emotions of hers of the early part of
the evening, she nevertheless found much in him to admire. It was
always just like that. She told herself that she was forever doing
the unexpected thing, the inconsistent thing. Women were queer
creatures, mysterious even to themselves.

"I am so pleased that you are enjoying it all," said Corthell's
voice at her shoulder. "I knew you would. There is nothing like
music such as this to appeal to the emotions, the heart--and with
your temperament."

Straightway he made her feel her sex. Now she was just a woman
again, with all a woman's limitations, and her relations with
Corthell could never be--so she realised--any other than
sex-relations. With Jadwin somehow it had been different. She had
felt his manhood more than her womanhood, her sex side. And between
them it was more a give-and-take affair, more equality, more
companionship. Corthell spoke only of her heart and to her heart.
But Jadwin made her feel--or rather she made herself feel when he
talked to her--that she had a head as well as a heart.

And the last act of the opera did not wholly absorb her attention.
The artists came and went, the orchestra wailed and boomed, the
audience applauded, and in the end the tenor, fired by a sudden