ll introduce
you in a moment, is a perfect autocrat; and Mr. Mullins, our stage
manager, is even worse."

"I just asked for you," John explained. "The doorkeeper told me that you
were engaged, but I persuaded him to let me come in."

She shook her head.

"Bribery!" she declared accusingly.

"I heard your voice, and after that it was hard to go away. I'm afraid I
ought to have waited outside."

Louise turned to Miles Faraday, who was looking a little annoyed.

"Mr. Faraday," she said appealingly, "Mr. Strangewey comes from the
country--he is, in fact, the most complete countryman I have ever met in
my life. He comes from Cumberland, and he once--well, very nearly saved
my life. He knows nothing about theaters, and he hasn't the least idea
of the importance of a rehearsal. You won't mind if we put him
somewhere out of the way till we have finished, will you?"

"After such an introduction," Faraday said in a tone of resignation,
"Mr. Strangewey would be welcome at any time."

"There's a dear man!" Louise exclaimed. "Let me introduce him quickly.
Mr. John Strangewey--Mr. Miles Faraday, M. Graillot, Miss Sophy Gerard,
my particular little friend. The prince you already know, although you
may not recognize him trying to balance himself on that absurd stool."

John bowed in various directions, and Faraday, taking him good-naturedly
by the arm, led him to a garden-seat at the back of the stage.

"There!" he said. "You are one of the most privileged persons in London.
You shall hear the finish of our rehearsal. There isn't a press man in
London I'd have near the place."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," John replied. "Is this, may I ask, the
play that you are soon going to produce?"

"Three weeks from next Monday, I hope," Faraday told him. "Don't attempt
to judge by anything you hear this afternoon. We are just deciding upon
some cuts. See you later. You may smoke, if you like."

Twenty-four hours away from his silent hills, John looked out with
puzzled eyes from his dusty seat among ropes and pulleys and leaning
fragments of scenery. What he saw and heard seemed to him, for the most
part, a meaningless tangle of gestures and phrases. The men and women in
fashionable clothes, moving about before that gloomy space of empty
auditorium, looked more like marionettes than creatures of flesh and
blood, drawn this way and that at the bidding of the stout, masterly
Frenchman, who was continually muttering exclamations and b