Ryder held up his hand as all the double doors in front of the Regent were opened with considerable flourish. The opening-night patrons began to spill onto the sidewalk almost immediately.

"You can wait here or come with me," he said, as a handsomely gilded carriage approached the front doors and blocked their view.

"But if you come, stay by my side and don't draw attention to yourself."

"As if I would." Leaning forward quickly, Ryder kissed her quickly on the cheek.

"You can't help it, Mary. Cover your hair." He opened the door of the hansom, jumped down, and held out his hand to her. Mary raised the hood of her cape before she took the proffered hand. Ryder told their driver to move on, circle the block, but not take another fare. He assured the man they would be making the return to the boarding house with him and they would pay for his time. Mary was going to remark on the wisdom of this, in light of their reduced funds, when she felt Ryder tug on her arm to get her to cross the avenue. The pace was more frantic now as hansoms vied with each other to collect their owners and the hired hacks moved in to snare the patrons who didn't have their own means of transportation. Ryder and Mary dodged horses and hansoms as they crossed the wide thoroughfare. They slipped behind a hack just pulling up to the sidewalk, then took their place as part of the crowd.

Ryder wove Mary skillfully through the throng until they were able to stand just beyond the gaslights on the shadowed perimeter of the theater.

Mary did not know who he was looking for or what to expect, but she was able to identiiy a number of people in the sea of faces.

"That's Alvin Schafer," she whispered to Ryder.

"And his wife Carolyn. Over there, in the blue, just coming out now.

He's a social reformer, and very well connected politically. I've heard him speak in New York. They take up the cause of orphaned children in the cities." Ryder was only listening with half an ear. He gave the couple a cursory glance and continued to scan the faces in the swarm in front of the theater.

"There are the Dodds." She stood on tiptoe to get a better view of the pendant at Mrs. Dodd's throat.

"Why, I believe that's paste," she said, astonished.

"She must have sold the original and had a copy made. I can tell you, the original is not half so large as that garish item. And look at the way she refuses to close her cape. She's inviting everyone to ogle it."

"Perhaps they don't have your discerning eye," Ryder said dryly.

"Or perhaps she's inviting a thief." He glimpsed Mary's questioning frown.

"If it's insured, then she would be reimbursed for its loss." Mary was left to wonder at it as the Dodds disappeared into their waiting carriage without incident.

She pointed out several other people to Ryder and received little comment in return. It was obvious to Mary that he was searching for a very particular face in the crowd.

"There's Warren Hamilton," she said, as the senator exited the theater.

There was no mistaking the sharp features of the Massachusetts politician.

In most cartoons Mary had seen he was unimaginatively represented as a hatchet. In person, it seemed the cartoonists had been kind.

"Is that who you've been-" Mary stopped because she felt Ryder stiffen as the senator stepped to one side and revealed the presence of the young woman on his right.

"Oh," she said, her voice hushed.

"She's the one we've come to see." Ryder placed a hand on Mary's shoulder as she came up on tiptoe and began to crane her neck in order to catch a better glimpse of their quarry.

Feeling a bit like an unruly puppy who has just been ordered to heel, Mary nonetheless shrank back into the shadows. She had seen enough to form an initial impression. Anna Leigh Hamilton was acknowledged as a beauty for very good reason. The woman's sunshine yellow hair caught the eye, and her flashing eyes and smile held one's gaze. She cut a dainty figure on the arm of her tall, angular father. She was as ebullient as he was sober, as generously proportioned as he was spare.

His impatient air faded only when he cast an indulgent smile in her direction. Ryder retreated a step backward into the safety of deeper shadows when Anna Leigh glanced in his direction. She did not see him, but looked past him instead, trying to spy the location of the carriage that was meant for her and her father. The doorman also saw her look and immediately stepped forward to search for Senator Hamilton's carriage himself.

"She's a princess," Mary said softly.

"Everyone does her bidding." Ryder nodded.

"Let's go.

I've seen enough. She's here and we can follow-" Mary laid her hand on his forearm, stopping him.

"Wait," she said.

"Isn't that your uncle?" Wilson Stillwell emerged from the theater, accompanied by two gentlemen. Mary recognized neither of them, but she was struck by the fact that they nodded politely to Anna Leigh and addressed her father while Wilson Stillwell made no acknowledgment.

"Your uncle has as little time or regard for Miss Hamilton as you do,"

Mary said.

"He cut her and her father dead."

"I doubt that it was on my account," Ryder said dryly. Mary sighed.

"You might give him the benefit of the doubt. Miss Hamilton maligned you, and your uncle is responding to it in the only way left to him."

Ryder did not argue with Mary's interpretation. Certainly she was correct in that Wilson Stillwell had made a direct cut. Ryder was just unsure of the motivation.

He tore his attention away from his uncle and surveyed the thinning crowd. He and Mary could not afford to stay much longer as they would be noticed by the doorman who had returned to his post.

"Come on," Ryder said.

"Our driver's circled the block for the third time. We need to go."

Mary let her arm be taken. She was briskly escorted across the avenue just in time to meet the hack as it completing its final tour. As Mary clambered into the cab, she vaguely heard Ryder give the order to their driver to follow Senator Hamilton's carriage. She had her face pressed to the hansom's window as Ryder settled himself in the seat.

"What are you still looking at?" asked Ryder. Mary did not pull back, turning her head sideways to keep her vision trained on the same point when the hansom began to move.

"Your uncle's not gotten into the carriage with his companions," she said.

"I believe he's going around to the side of the theater. Why yes, there he goes. What do you suppose he intends to do."

"Miss Yvonne Marie," Ryder said.

"What?" asked Mary. Then, "Oh. I see. He wants to make the actress's acquaintance." She turned away from the window.

"He's never married?"

"Briefly. Years ago. My aunt died in childbirth. The child died a few days later. He never remarried."

Mary was genuinely moved.

"How sad for him. Then you're all he has."

"It may explain Wilson's actions," Ryder said tightly, thinking of his own dead wife and child.

"It doesn't justify them."

"No," she said quickly.

"Of course it doesn't." Ryder sighed.