was another quite ready to take her place. Miss
Burgoyne did not at all appear to regret the disappearance from the
theatre of Antonia Rossi. She was kinder to this young man than ever;
she showered her experienced blandishments upon him, even when she
rallied him about his gloomy looks or listless demeanor. All the time he
was not on the stage, and not engaged in dressing, he usually spent in
her sitting-room; there were cigarettes and lemonade awaiting him; and
when she herself could not appear, at all events she could carry on a
sort of conversation with him from the inner sanctuary; and often she
would come out and finish her make-up before the large mirror while she
talked to him.

"They tell me you gamble," she said to him on one occasion, in her blunt
way.

"Not much," he said.

"What good do you get out of it?" she asked again.

"Oh, well, it is a sort of distraction. It keeps people from thinking."

"And what have you to think about?" continued Grace Mainwaring,
regarding herself in the glass. "What dreadful crimes have you to
forget? You want to drown remorse, do you? I dare say you ought; but I
don't believe it all the same. You men don't care what you do, and poor
girls' hearts get broken. But gambling! Well, I imagine most men have
one vice or another, but gambling has always seemed to me the stupidest
thing one could take to. Drink kills you, but I suppose you get some fun
out of it. What fun do you get out of gambling? Too serious, isn't it?
And then the waste of money. The fact is, you want somebody to take care
of you, Master Lionel; and a fine job she'll have of it, whoever
undertakes it!"

"Why should it be a she," he asked, "assuming that I am incapable of
managing my own affairs?"

"Because it is the way of the world," she answered, promptly. "And you,
of all people, need somebody to look after you. Why should you have to
take to gambling, at your time of life? You're not shamming _ennui_, are
you, to imitate your swell acquaintances? _Ennui!_ I could cure their
_ennui_ for them, if they'd only come to _me_!" she added, somewhat
scornfully.

"A cure for _ennui_?" he said. "That would be valuable; what is it?"

"I'd tell them to light a wax match and put it up their nostril and hold
it there till it went out," she answered, with some sharpness.

"It would make them jump, anyway, wouldn't it?" he said, listlessly.

"It would give them something to claim their very earnest attention for
a