own accord have sought to
see her. In consequence, he rather welcomed than otherwise the arrival
of Marion Cavendish, who came a half-hour before Helen was expected, and
who followed a hasty knock with a precipitate entrance.

"Sit down," she commanded breathlessly; "and listen. I've been at
rehearsal all day, or I'd have been here before you were awake." She
seated herself nervously and nodded her head at Carroll in an excited
and mysterious manner.

"What is it?" he asked. "Have you and Reggie--"

"Listen," Marion repeated, "our fortunes are made; that is what's the
matter--and I've made them. If you took half the interest in your work I
do, you'd have made yours long ago. Last night," she began impressively,
"I went to a large supper at the Savoy, and I sat next to Charley
Wimpole. He came in late, after everybody had finished, and I attacked
him while he was eating his supper. He said he had been rehearsing
'Caste' after the performance; that they've put it on as a stop-gap on
account of the failure of the 'Triflers,' and that he knew revivals were
of no use; that he would give any sum for a good modern comedy. That
was my cue, and I told him I knew of a better comedy than any he had
produced at his theatre in five years, and that it was going begging.
He laughed, and asked where was he to find this wonderful comedy, and
I said, 'It's been in your safe for the last two months and you haven't
read it.' He said, 'Indeed, how do you know that?' and I said, 'Because
if you'd read it, it wouldn't be in your safe, but on your stage.' So he
asked me what the play was about, and I told him the plot and what sort
of a part his was, and some of his scenes, and he began to take notice.
He forgot his supper, and very soon he grew so interested that he turned
his chair round and kept eying my supper-card to find out who I was, and
at last remembered seeing me in 'The New Boy'--and a rotten part it was,
too--but he remembered it, and he told me to go on and tell him more
about your play. So I recited it, bit by bit, and he laughed in all the
right places and got very much excited, and said finally that he would
read it the first thing this morning." Marion paused, breathlessly. "Oh,
yes, and he wrote your address on his cuff," she added, with the air of
delivering a complete and convincing climax.

Carroll stared at her and pulled excitedly on his pipe.

"Oh, Marion!" he gasped, "suppose he should? He won't though," he added