is. I told Mr.
Hempel so this morning. He is brewing his contracts now so be
prepared. Will you try it?"

"I'd love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can. I promised Uncle Phil I
would take a year of the school work though. Will I have to drop that?"

"I think so--most of it at least. You would have to be at the rehearsals
usually which are in the morning. You might have to play Madge quite
often then. There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just
now." Again the shadow, darkened the star's eyes and a droop came to her
mouth. "It isn't even so impossible that you would be called upon to
play before the real Broadway audience in fact. Understudies sometimes
do you know."

Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not
lifted Tony saw.

"I am particularly anxious to get a good understudy started in
immediately," the actress continued. "The one I had was impossible, did
not get the spirit of the thing at all. It is absolutely essential to
have some one ready and at once. My little daughter is in a sanitarium
dying with an incurable heart leakage. There will be a time--probably
within the next two months--when I shall have to be away."

Tony put out her hand and let it rest upon the other woman's. There was
compassion in her young eyes.

"I am so sorry," she said simply. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Of
course, I did know you weren't really Miss Clay, that you were Mrs.
Somebody, but I didn't think of your having children. Somehow we don't
remember actresses may be mothers too."

"The actresses remember it--sometimes," said Miss Clay with a tremulous
little smile. "It isn't easy to laugh when your heart is heavy, Miss
Antoinette. It is all I can do to go on with 'Madge' sometimes. I just
have to forget--make myself forget I am a mother and a wife. Captain
Carey, my husband, is in the British Army. He is in Flanders now, or was
when I last heard."

"Oh, I don't see how you can do it--play, I mean," sighed Tony aghast at
this new picture the actress's words brought up.

"One learns, my dear. One has to. An actress is two distinct persons.
One of her belongs to the public. The other is just a plain woman.
Sometimes I feel as if I were far more the first than I am the second.
There wouldn't be any more contracts if I were not. But never mind that.
To come back to you. Mr. Hempel will send you a contract to-morrow. Will
you sign it?"

"Yes, if Uncle Phil is willing. I'll wire him to-ni