eart
that a man feels for a perfectly good woman who is jolly and friendly
with him after she has allowed him to tell her just how wicked he is or
thinks he is. "I thought the whole thing was a flivver, but when
Vandeford got the opening of the New Carnival for it, I sat up and took
notice. Just you watch the stuff between Hawtry and me put a line a mile
long from the box office."

"I'm wild to see you and Miss Hawtry in your scenes, and we must go to
dress for early dinner. The rehearsals are called for six-thirty. Thank
you for--for being my friend." As she rose from the sand Miss Adair held
out her hand to Mr. Height, with the friendliness and confidence in her
eyes that had smoothed over other rough, though not so rough, places of
the same character in her young life.

"That's some kid and there are lots like her. I've got to halt sooner or
later," Mr. Height muttered to himself as he dressed for his early
dinner. "I'm going to put this fool play across for her, too." There are
a few women who distill loyalty out of declined passion; but not many.
They make their mark on their generation.

The dress rehearsals of a play are varied in finish and intensity, but
the variety which Mr. William Rooney conducted was of the most
brilliant, and he expected them to go as well as the opening night. He
made small allowance for the strangeness of lights, scenery, and
costuming, and that allowance was only for time, not in smoothness. As
he willed, his cast generally performed. The cast of "The Purple
Slipper" was of experienced actors, and he felt certain that they would
meet his expectations. At six-thirty o'clock he seated himself in the
middle seat of the sixth row center, looked around to see that the
electrician and the costumer were at hand to catch any criticism he
wished to make, and in a crisp hard voice that exploded like a cannon he
called up the curtain.

The author was at her post in the left stage box, and bulwarked and
buttressed by the producer as usual, while Mr. Dennis Farraday, the
angel, sat alone in the box opposite, with a delighted smile on his
broad face.

The curtain went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with
never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the
wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to
unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the
author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the
ac