gasped, uncertain as to what she meant.

"Talked to that--that playwright and--and drank some champagne. I like
cider better, but Mr. Height ordered it, and I thought--"

Here the car stopped, and Valentine was at the door. Valentine never
failed to be at the door instantly when Miss Adair was in Mr.
Vandeford's car, because his French soul rejoiced within him for thus
serving a grand dame.

"Rooney is on the last lap of the last act, and then he'll begin to
polish the whole for dress rehearsals," Mr. Vandeford said as he held
the curtains of their box aside for her to enter.

"And Mr. Height told me, too, that the Trevors had--"

"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, becoming the stern producer, because he
felt that he could stand no more of Mr. Height at the Beach Inn, though
he began to listen intently to that same gentleman and Bebe Herne in the
beginning of the great scene of the now authorless play. The anxieties
passed from him, and in a moment he was in harness again with his author
and running in perfect unison.

"Cut it off, Height, cut it off!" commanded Mr. Rooney, and he ran his
hands into his shock of black hair, which stood up all over his head
like a black, sooty mop. "That scene needs something. It isn't big and
simple enough. What did she say to him in your first layout, miss?" he
demanded of Miss Adair, for the first time acknowledging to the company
the presence of the author of their play at the rehearsals. "Can you
remember?"

"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the home-made color blazing in her
cheeks and fires in her gray eyes as she rose in the box, and gave the
six lines as she had written them. Her lovely, slurring, Blue-grass
voice made the whole company smile with pleasure.

"That's it! That's it! That's real people jawing and not a lot of smarty
guff. Put that in, Fido, and write it in, Miss Herne," commanded Mr.
Rooney, without any form of thanks to the accommodating and forgiving
author.

And truth to say the author of "The Purple Slipper" did not notice his
omission. She was in such joy at having something of the "big scene"
express what she had intended that she was clasping one of Mr.
Vandeford's hands in both hers and holding on tight to keep from
shedding tears of joy.

"What did I tell you?" he asked, taking the two nervously clutched
little hands into his warm, strong ones, unseen in the shadow of the
box. "You keep getting things across to Bill by letting him ask you for
wha