nquired; "Miss Lyston struck you as feeling that her condition
in life was distinctly improved by this ascent into vaudeville, didn't
she?"

"Oh, not at all, Mr. Potter! But, of course," Packer explained
deprecatingly, "she's pleased to have Vorly where she can keep an eye
on him. She said that though she was all broken up about leaving the
company, she expected to be very happy in looking after him. You see,
sir, it's the first time in all their married life they've had a chance
to be together except one summer when neither of 'em could get a stock
engagement."

Potter made no reply but to shake his head despondently, and Packer sat
silent in deference, as if waiting to be questioned further. It was
the playwright who presently filled the void. "Why haven't Mr. and Mrs.
Surbilt gone into the same companies, if they care to be together? I
should think they'd have made it a point to get engagements in the same
ones."

Packer looked disturbed. "It's not done much," he said.

"Besides, Vorly Surbilt plays leading parts with women stars," old
Tinker volunteered. "You see, naturally, it wouldn't do at all."

"Jealousy, you mean?"

"Not necessarily the kind you're thinking of. But it just doesn't do."

"Some managers will allow married couples in their companies," Potter
said, adding emphatically: "I won't! I never have and I never will!
Never! There's just one thing every soul in my support has got to keep
working for, and that is a high-tension performance every night in the
year. If married people are in love with each other, they're going to
think more about that than about the fact that they're working for me.
If they aren't in love with each other, there's the devil to pay. I'd
let the best man or woman in the profession go--and they could go to
vaudeville, for all I cared!--if I had to keep their wives or husbands
travelling with us. I won't have 'em! My soul! I don't marry, do I?"

Packer rose. "Is there anything else for me, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes. Take this interlined script, get some copies typewritten, and see
that the company's sides are changed to suit it. Be especially careful
about that young Miss--ah--Miss Malone's. You'll find her part is
altered considerably, and will be even more, when Mr. Canby gets the
dialogue for other changes finished. He'll let you have them to-morrow.
By the way, Packer, where did you find--" He paused, stretched out his
hand to the miniature sedan chair of liqueurs, took a de