ast bit in the
world like the lovely ordered picture he had been accustomed to delight
in from the shilling gallery--after the first few days he began to
focus this strange world and to suffer its fascination. And he was
proud of the silent part allotted to him, a lazy lute-player in
attendance on the great lady, who lounged about on terrace steps in
picturesque attitudes. He was glad that he was not an unimportant
member of the crowd of courtiers who came on in a bunch and bowed and
nodded and pretended to talk to one another and went off again. He
realized that he would be in sight of the audience all the time. It did
not strike him that the manager was using him merely as a piece of
decoration.

One day, however, at rehearsal the leading lady said: "If my
lute-player could play a few chords here--or the orchestra for him-it
would help me tremendously. I've got all this long cross with nothing
to say."

Paul seized his opportunity. "I can play the mandoline," said he.

"Oh, can you?" said the manager, and Paul was handed over to the
musical director, and the next day rehearsed with a real instrument
which he twanged in the manner prescribed. He did not fail to announce
himself to Jane as a musician.

Gradually he found his feet among the heterogeneous band who walk on at
London theatres. Some were frankly vulgar, some were pretentiously
genteel, a good many were young men of gentle birth from the public
schools and universities. Paul's infallible instinct drew him into
timid companionship with the last. He knew little of the things they
talked about, golf and cricket prospects, and the then brain-baffling
Ibsen, but he listened modestly, hoping to learn. He reaped the
advantage of having played "the sedulous ape" to his patrons of the
studios. His tricks were somewhat exaggerated; his sweep of the hat
when ladies passed him at the stage door entrance was lower than custom
deems necessary; he was quicker in courteous gesture than the young men
from the universities; he bowed more deferentially to an interlocutor
than is customary outside Court circles; but they were all the tricks
of good breeding. More than one girl asked if he were of foreign
extraction. He remembered Rowlatt's question of years ago, and, as
then, he felt curiously pleased. He confessed to an exotic strain: to
Italian origin. Italy was romantic. When he obtained a line part and he
appeared on the bill, he took the opportunity of changing a name