THE HEAVY VELVET CURTAIN SWUNG UP FOR THE eighth time. The three ballerinas curtsied to the ground. The coryphées, holding hands, ran on in two lines and curtsied behind them. Judith was the first of the line of coryphées on the left. As she stooped, her sleek black head bent, she seemed a fragment of the white picture on the stage; but only her body was a part, her mind was detached from what was happening. All the evening her mind had been on her work. That unconscious memorizing ahead that belongs to the interpretive artist. Through three different ballets she had thought, “My arms raised to that position,” “My head forward that way,” “My feet . . .” and then her mind memorized a chain of dancing words, arabesques, attitudes, chassés, bourrées-changées ruements, pirou­ettes, and the other intricate terms that had been drilled into her brain since her eighth birthday. She was tired. An act of Coppelia, Aurora’s Wedding and Sylphides was a strain. Even as she curtsied she was mentally taking off her ballet dress, tights and shoes and was slipping into her street things and stepping out of the stage door where, by now, Paul Conquest would be waiting. Thinking of Paul gave Judith a queer, fluttering feeling round her heart. Half fright, half happiness. Paul, with his square chin and honest blue eyes, was so masterful. Somehow he seemed to have become part of her life, and part of her life that Mummy knew nothing about. If Mummy knew how often she saw Paul would Mummy mind?