e beauty was
attracting no little attention in the feasting Orangery. "She's getting
along all right, eh?"

"Remember you've been in the business about forty-eight hours, Denny,
and never forget that every knife here is sheathed in a smile and
everybody carries a rubber stamp with double X on it," answered Mr.
Vandeford, with gloom, as he pushed back his coffee-cup. "She's tasted
blood now and that ends it. She's with us, and the Lord help her! I
can't!"

"Well, come on and let's get to the office," answered Mr. Farraday, with
a cheerful lack of sympathy with his friend's anxiety for the talented
budding playwright.

"Everything all O. K., Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he passed the
table where the Miss Villines and the heavy movie man were finishing
their bottles of cold beer.

"Soused and scribbling," answered Mazie, cheerfully.

"Remember, Friday."

"Remember your check-book."

"Goes!"

Shortly after Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday reached the office of Mr.
Vandeford, Miss Adair, accompanied by Mr. Height, appeared with a neat
little parcel in their possession. Also Miss Adair had another, very
conventional, corsage bouquet in the place of the one Mr. Vandeford had
given her in the morning and which at luncheon had begun to look the
worse for wear.

"Now what shall I do?" she asked Mr. Vandeford, with great energy.

"Go right down and get in my car and go back to the Y. W. C. A., to take
a long nap. I'll call for you for that Broadway eye-opener at eight
o'clock to-night, so get 'em well rested," he answered, and he smiled
when he noted that the expression in her eyes that he had begun to look
for with desperate eagerness still held. Mr. Meyers had engaged Mr.
Height with a contract, and Mr. Farraday had been an interested
spectator to the tussle. Producer and author were alone.

"Mr. Height asked me to go to see Maude Adams, but I told him I couldn't
go anywhere at night until you could take me," said Miss Adair with
sparks of joy in the sea-gray eyes. "I'm so glad it is to-night."

"Did you really tell Height that?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, with youth
swelling through his arteries.

"Yes."

"Go, child, go and get a nap," Mr. Vandeford laughed, as he opened the
door for her and started out to descend and deliver her into the keeping
of faithful Valentine.

"I'll put her into the car, Van," offered Mr. Farraday. "They need you
here in this fight."

And again his author was snatched out of Mr. V