Love

She first became aware of him on the evening of her fifth visit, when she heard two people talking just behind her before the curtain went up, and one said, sounding proud, ÔThis is my eleventh timeÕ; and the other answered carelessly, ÔThis is my thirty-secondthÕÑupon which the first one exclaimed, ÔOh, I say!Õ with much the sound of a pricked balloon wailing itself flat, and she couldnÕt resist turning her face, lit up with interest and amusement, to look. Thus she saw Christopher consciously for the first time, and he saw her.

After that they noticed each otherÕs presence for three more performances, and then, when it was her ninth and his thirty-sixthÑfor the enthusiasts of The Immortal Hour kept jealous count of their visitsÑand they found themselves sitting in the same row with only twelve empty seats between them, he moved up six nearer to her when the curtain went down between the two scenes of the first act, and when it went down at the end of the first act, after that love scene which invariably roused the small band of the faithful to a kind of mystic frenzy of delight, he moved up the other six and sat down boldly beside her.