personality" is her sole anxiety, and--well, it is not enough. Miss
Bingham was assisted by Frederic de Belleville, Frazer Coulter and
others less known to fortune and to fame, but "Mademoiselle Marni" was
not accepted. It was staged "regardless," but even that fact did not
count in its favor. Miss Bingham's pluck and recklessness were alone
in evidence.

Scarcely more felicitous was Miss Mary Mannering with "Nancy Stair."
Miss Mannering is not as good an actress as Miss Bingham. She is one
of the "be-stars-quickly." A year or two more in some good company
would have been of inestimable advantage to her, but the lower rungs
of the ladder are not in great demand to-day. That ladder is
top-heavy. The upper rungs are worn by the futile grasp of the too
ambitious; the lower ones are neglected.

It was Paul M. Potter who tapped on the book cover of Elinor Macartney
Lane's novel, with his not very magic wand, and tried to coax forth a
play. Exactly why he did this was not made clear, for the day of the
book play is over, and there was nothing in "Nancy Stair" that
overtopped the gently commonplace. Mr. Potter's play was by no means
lacking in interest, but we are exceedingly tired of the ubiquitous
heroine of tawdry "romance" who does unsubtle things, in an unsubtle
way, to help out certain unsubtle "complications." If I mistake not,
these very novels are beginning to pall, as such stupid, meaningless
vaporings should do. One cannot resist the belief that one-half of
them are written with an eye upon the gullible playwright, for a play
means larger remuneration than any novel could ever hope to secure.

It is not necessary to rehearse the story of "Nancy Stair." I can
assume that you have read it, though if you are like me, you haven't.
I look upon Mr. Julius Cahn's "Official Theatrical Guide" as rich and
racy literature compared with these fatiguing attempts to invent
impossible people, and drag them through a jungle of impossible
happenings--simply because Mr. Anthony Hope, a few years ago, achieved
success by similar means, which at that time had a semblance of
novelty. I may be "prejudiced," but then I have at least the courage
of my own prejudices. In "Nancy Stair" Mr. Potter even seemed to
belittle opportunities that might have raised his play from the dull
level of conventionality.

One episode in which _Nancy_, afraid that her lover has murdered the
_Duke of Borthwicke_, enters the presence of the corpse, and ther