at Stewart
Canby had written the night before.

Two people were falling in love with each other, neither realizing it.
And these two who played the lovers had found some hidden rhythm that
brought them together in one picture as a chord is one sound. They
played to each other and with each other instinctively; Talbot Potter
had forgotten "the smile" and all the mechanism that went with it. The
two held the little breathless silences of lovers; they broke these
silences timidly, and then their movements and voices ran together
like waters in a fountain. A radiance was about them as it is about all
lovers; they were suffused with it.

To Stewart Canby, watching, they seemed to move within a sorcerer's
circle of enchantment. Upon his disturbed mind there was dawning a
conviction that these inspired mummers were beings apart from him,
knowing things he never could know, feeling things he never could feel,
belonging to another planet whither he could never voyage, where
strange winds blew and all things lived and grew in a light beyond his
understanding. For the light that shone in the faces of these two was
"the light that never was, on sea or land."

It had its blessing for him. From that moment, if he had known it, this
play, which was being born of so many parents, was certain of "success,"
of "popularity," and of what quality of renown such things may bring.
And he who was to be called its author stood there a Made Man, unless
some accident befell.

Miss Ellsling spoke and came forward, another actor with her. The
scene was over. There was a clearing of throats; everybody moved. The
stage-carpenter and his assistant went away blinking, like men roused
from deep sleep. The routine of rehearsal resumed its place; and old
Tinker, who had not stirred a muscle, rubbed the back of his neck
suddenly, and came up the aisle to Canby.

"Good business!" he cried. "Did you see that little run off the stage
she made when Miss Ellsling came on? And you saw what he can do when he
wants to!"

"He?" Canby echoed. "He?"

"Played for the scene instead of himself. Oh, he can do it! He's an old
hand--got too many tricks in the bag to let her get the piece away from
him--but he's found a girl that can play with him at last, and he'll use
every value she's got. He knows good property when he sees it. She's got
a pretty good box of tricks herself; stock's the way to learn 'em, but
it's apt to take the bloom off. It hasn't taken off an