her and smiled
quizzically.

"What a dear little goose you are! Do you suppose that stage lovers are
going to stand in the wings and throw kisses to you?"

"No," said Eleanor hotly; "but that will be different."

"It certainly will," he agreed amiably. "You will not only have to be
kissed, but you will have to kiss back. You have a lot of little
puritanical prejudices to get over, my dear, before you can ever hope to
act. You don't want to be a thin-blooded little old maid, do you?"

The shot was well aimed, for Eleanor had no desire to follow in the arid
footsteps of her two spinster aunts. She looked at Captain Phipps
unsteadily and shook her head.

"Of course you don't," he encouraged her. "You aren't built for it.
Besides, it's an actress's business to cultivate her emotions rather than
repress them, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Then, for heaven's sake, obey your impulses and let other people obey
theirs. From now on you are to be identified with a profession that
transcends the petty conventions of society. Confess! Aren't you already
a little ashamed of getting angry with me just now?"

She was not ashamed, not in the least; but her ardent desire to prove her
fitness for that coveted profession, together with the compelling
insistence of that persuasive voice, prompted her to hold out a reluctant
hand and to smile.

"You are a darling child!" said Captain Phipps, with a level glance of
approval. "I shall see you to-morrow. When? Where?"

But she would make no engagement. She was in a flutter to be gone. It was
her first experience at dancing on a precipice, and, while she liked it,
she could not deny, even to herself, that at times it made her
uncomfortably hot and dizzy.

CHAPTER 5

Eleanor's thoughts were still in a turmoil as she slowed her car to a
within-the-law limit of speed and brought it to a dignified halt before
an imposing edifice on Third Avenue. The precaution was well taken, for a
long, pale face that had been pressed to a front window promptly
transferred itself to the front door, and an anxious voice called out:

"Oh, Nellie, _why_ did you stay out so late? Didn't you know it was your
duty to be in before five?"

"It's not late, Aunt Isobel," said Eleanor impatiently. "It gets dark
early, that's all."

"And you must be frozen," persisted Miss Isobel, "with those thin pumps
and silk stockings, and nothing but that veil on your head.