great possibilities in the final act."

His hands were tremulous and his eyes glowing as he put the note down
and faced himself in the glass. The pleasure of meeting her again under
such conditions made him forget, for the moment, the role she was to
play--a part he particularly detested. Truly he was the most fortunate
and distinguished of men--to be thus taken by the hand and lifted from
nameless obscurity to the most desired position beside a great star.

He dressed with unusual care, and was a noticeably handsome figure as he
sat alone in the box; and elated, tense, self-conscious. When she came
on and walked close down to the foot-lights nearest him, flashing a
glance of recognition into his eyes, his breath quickened and his face
flushed. A swift interchange of light and fire took place at the moment,
her eyelids fell. She recoiled as if in dismay, then turned and
apparently forgot him and every one else in the fervor of her art.

A transforming readjustment of all the lines of her face took place. She
became sinister, mocking, and pitiless. An exultant cruelty croaked in
her voice. Minute, repulsive remodellings of her neck and cheeks changed
her to a harpy, and seeing these evidences of her great genius Douglass
grew bitterly resentful, and when she laughed, with the action of a
vulture thrusting her head forward from the shoulders, he sickened and
turned away. It was marvellous work, but how desecrating to her glorious
womanhood. Coming so close on that moment of mystic tenderness it was
horrible. "My God! She must not play such parts. They will leave their
mark upon her."

When the curtain fell he did not applaud, but drew back into the shadow,
sullen, brooding, sorrowful. In the tableau which followed the recall,
her eyes again sought for him (though she still moved in character),
and the curtain fell upon the scene while yet she was seeking him.

Here now began a transformation in the man. He had come to the theatre
tremulous with eagerness to look upon her face, to touch her hand, but
when her brother entered the box, saying, "Mr. Douglass, this is the
best time to see my sister," he rose slowly with a curious reluctance.

Through devious passages beneath the theatre, Hugh led the way, while
with greater poignancy than ever before the young playwright sensed the
vulgarity, the immodesty, and the dirt of the world behind and below the
scenes. It was all familiar enough to him, for he had several friends