kid," said he--"the poor, lonely, stifled little
crippled-up kid."

"I beg your pardon, sir?" inquired his chauffeur.

"Speak when you're spoken to," snapped Sid Hahn.

And here it must be revealed to you that Sid Hahn did not marry the
Cinderella of the storage warehouse. He did not marry anybody, and
neither did Josie. And yet there is a bit more to this story--ten years
more, if you must know--ten years, the end of which found Josie a
sparse, spectacled, and agile little cripple, as alert and caustic as
ever. It found Sid Hahn the most famous theatrical man of his day. It
found Sarah Haddon at the fag-end of a career that had blazed with
triumph and adulation. She had never had a success like "Splendour."
Indeed, there were those who said that all the plays that followed had
been failures, carried to semi-success on the strength of that play's
glorious past. She eschewed low-cut gowns now. She knew that it is the
telltale throat which first shows the marks of age. She knew, too, why
Bernhardt, in "Camille," always died in a high-necked nightgown. She
took to wearing high, ruffled things about her throat, and softening,
kindly chiffons.

And then, in a mistaken moment, they planned a revival of "Splendour."
Sarah Haddon would again play the part that had become a classic.
Fathers had told their children of it--of her beauty, her golden voice,
the exquisite grace of her, the charm, the tenderness, the pathos. And
they told them of the famous black velvet dress, and how in it she had
moved like a splendid, buoyant bird.

So they revived "Splendour." And men and women brought their sons and
daughters to see. And what they saw was a stout, middle-aged woman in a
too-tight black velvet dress that made her look like a dowager. And when
this woman flopped down on her knees in the big scene at the close of
the last act she had a rather dreadful time of it getting up again.
And the audience, resentful, bewildered, cheated of a precious memory,
laughed. That laugh sealed the career of Sarah Haddon. It is a
fickle thing, this public that wants to be amused; fickle and cruel
and--paradoxically enough--true to its superstitions. The Sarah Haddon
of eighteen years ago was one of these. They would have none of this
fat, puffy, ample-bosomed woman who was trying to blot her picture from
their memory. "Away with her!" cried the critics through the columns of
next morning's paper. And Sarah Haddon's day was done.

"It's because