rs, but this girl acts like it gives her a pain to talk to
me. She don't seem to take no interest in her act."

The business manager chewed irritably on his cigar. They were sitting in
the darkened theater while Mary Burton was being rehearsed in the short
and dramatic sketch which Smitherton had secured for her.

"Has it occurred to you, Lewis," he suggested, with a certain coolness
of manner, "that you wouldn't be paying Miss Burton the salary you are
if she was like anybody else you've known? Haven't you considered the
fact that this lady is going to pack your place to capacity because of
her difference?"

"Maybe so. Maybe she's a big novelty, and I ain't kicking," assented the
other. "But it does seem to me she ought to be more grateful--for the
chance she's getting. She's a knock-out all right! Them eyes ought to
get the folks going--I wish she'd use 'em more."

The two sat silent for a while with the empty chairs around them, then
Mr. Abey Lewis raised the megaphone with which he was directing and
spoke to the stage.

"Daughter," he instructed, "you ain't quite got the psychology of the
part yet." Mary Burton came down toward the front of the stage, with her
fore-arm raised across her face to shut off the glare of the "foots," as
she listened. Mr. Lewis rose and walked thoughtfully down the aisle
toward her. It was Mr. Lewis' intent to handle very delicately this new
headliner whom he failed to comprehend, and of whom he stood in secret
awe.

"Now you see, daughter," he went on, "this act gives you a great chance
for emotion, and I know, when you get the right angle on it, you'll eat
it up. You've just got wise there, where I broke in, to the fact that
your husband's a criminal. You ain't never suspected he was a crook
before. Now that calls for emotion.... Put more color into it.... Pound
it a little harder. When George ends his long speech and pauses, that
brings you across, see? It cues your reception of the news. It throws a
bomb under you. In times like them women get more hysterical. They ain't
quiet in grief, like men, so just cut loose a little more. Give us a
nice little scream."

For once Mary Burton almost smiled, as she hearkened to this wise
dissertation on emotion, but she only bowed her head in assent, as the
director added: "Take the scene up again at George's entrance."

When he sat down beside Smitherton, Abey Lewis shook his head. "I ain't
sure we didn't make a mistake in giving her a s