upon enact a scene which was a slow and marvellous distilling of
the very wine of emotion intended to go through human blood like a
stinging poison. It had reached its climax, and even the emptiness of
the theater was breathless when, like a whip, Mr. Rooney's cold voice
brought Miss Hawtry out of Mr. Height's arms.

"Cut it, cut it!" he commanded. "You couldn't get that across even on
Broadway. The censor will close the show. Play it fifty per cent. and
then all the subway will quit you."

"I'll play it as I choose, you black monkey, you, with your Irish name."
Maggie Murphy sprang out from the body of the beautiful Hawtry to answer
back gutter with gutter.

"Wait a minute, Miss Hawtry." Mr. Vandeford rose in his box from beside
the author of the violent scene that was becoming a basis of a scene of
violence. "Rooney, it can be played with--"

"You sit down and help your bread-and-butter baby hide her face for
writing such rot instead of trying to tell me how to act." Maggie was
now commanding the Violet, and she was wild with nervous rage. "She's
welcome to you; five years of your living off me and my work is enough,
and I don't intend to--"

"Back to your lines on which Miss Hawtry enters, Miss Lindsey,"
commanded Mr. Rooney, in his machine-gun manner. "Get ready for your
cue, Height."

Completely ignoring Miss Hawtry, who was standing down center, Mildred
Lindsey calmly entered and began the beautiful little bit of persiflage
with Miss Herne, who had gone on before her with an agility unlike her
usual slow gait. There was nothing for Miss Hawtry to do but retire to
the wings, which she did, and with the nervous bomb exploded, she
continued the rehearsals to a finish with the greatest brilliancy,
playing the interrupted scene at fifty per cent. of its fire, as
directed by Mr. Rooney.

But the author of "The Purple Slipper" was not there to see the ending
in calm after the storm, for she had fled at the Violet's attack upon
Mr. Vandeford, and while he stood his ground to see the matter settled
in the face of the insult, she had vanished.

CHAPTER VIII

At twelve-thirty Mr. Rooney was still in the theater with his
property-man and his electrician, but just before one he left through
the stage-door.

"All over, old man, you can put out your lights, lock up, and beat it,"
he said to the old gentleman who had sat year after year and kept the
gates of his Inferno.

"Star still in her dressing-room, g