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 The air was charged with an enthusiasm which for Louise, as she sank back exhausted, spelt Majority. Keble was forced to acknowledge the prolonged acclamation, and Pat Goard quickly followed up the advantage with a few words of dismissal.

Excitement and lack of sleep, following on her long ordeal, had overtaxed Louise. She felt weak and a little frightened as she walked towards a side door in a deserted back room of the building, followed by Keble, who came running to overtake.

"I know it was cheap," she quickly forestalled him, "but I couldn't help it." He seemed to have been subdued by the pandemonium she had let loose, as though suddenly aware that he had been satisfied with too little until she gave a demonstration of what pitch enthusiasm could and must be raised to. "It's my love of acting," she added. "I hope you weren't annoyed."

Keble was in the grip of a retrospective panic. "Why am I always finding things out so late!" he cried, with a profound appeal in his voice. "I'm always walking near a precipice in the fog. Why can't I see the things you see?"

Her fatigue made her a little hysterical. "Why do you keep your eyes shut?" she retorted.

A cloud of feeling that had been growing heavier for weeks burst and deluged Keble with the sense of what his wife meant to him. He saw what a jabber all social intercourse might become should she withhold her interpretative affection from him or ex-