. I suppose you did not suspect that it was Max Hempel who sent me to
see you play Rose?"

"Mr. Hempel? I thought he had forgotten me."

"He never forgets any one in whom he is interested. He has had his eye
on you ever since he saw you play Rosalind. He told me when he came back
from that trip that I had a rival coming on."

"Oh, no!" Tony objected even in jest to such desecration.

"Oh, yes," smiled her hostess. "Max Hempel is a brutally frank person. He
never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth. He has had his
eye out for a new ingenue for a long time. Ingenues do get old--at least
older you know."

"Not you," denied Tony.

"Even I, in time. I grant you not yet. It takes a degree of age and
sophistication to play youth and innocence. We do it better as a rule at
thirty than at twenty. We are far enough away from it to stand off and
observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it.
That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night. You played
like a little girl as Rose should. You looked like a little girl. But you
couldn't have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn't been a
little bit grown up. Do you understand?"

Tony nodded.

"I think so. You see I am--a little bit grown up."

"Don't grow up any more. You are adorable as you are. But to business.
Have you seen my Madge?"

"In the 'End of the Rainbow?' Yes, indeed. I love it. You like the part
too, don't you? You play it as if you did."

"I do. I like it better than any I have had since Rose. Did it occur to
you that you would like to play Madge yourself?"

Tony blushed ingenuously.

"Well, yes, it did," she admitted half shyly. "Of course, I knew I
couldn't play it as you did. It takes years of experience and a real art
like yours to do it like that, but I did think I'd like to try it and see
what I could do."

Miss Clay nodded, well pleased.

"Of course you did. Why not? It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is.
You and I are the same types. Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever
since he saw your Rosalind. But I won't keep you in suspense. The long
and short of all this preliminary is--how would you like to be my
understudy for Madge?"

"Oh, Miss Clay!" Tony gasped. "Do you think I could?"

"I know you could, my dear. I knew it all the time while I was
watching you play Rose. Mr. Hempel has known it even longer. I went to
see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you. There