as just the commercial sense of the
born advertiser. Let him choose the moment. Then we can feel sure of
getting the right one. Will you, Luck?"

"If you advise it. You ought to know."

"You see, I'm so confoundedly busy, so many irons in the fire, I might
just miss the psychic moment. I think Melton's the man--I'll call him
up to-night before we leave. Then I won't forget it and I'll be sure
to catch him too."

Again Prosper vaguely agreed and promptly forgot that he had given his
permission. Later, there came an agonizing moment when he would have
given the world to recall his absent, careless words.

With an effort Prosper kept his poise, with an effort, always
increasing, he talked to Jasper while Betty dressed, and kept up his
end at dinner. The muscles round his mouth felt tight and drawn, his
throat was dry. He was glad when they got into the limousine and
started theaterwards. It had been a long time since he had been put
through this particular ordeal and he was out of practice.

They reached the house just as the lights went out. Prosper was amused
at his own intense excitement. "I didn't know I was still such a kid,"
he said, flashing a smile, the first spontaneous one he had given her,
upon Betty who sat beside him in the proscenium box.

The success of his novel had had no such effect upon him as this. It
was entrancing to think that in a few moments the words he had written
would come to him clothed in various voices, the people his brain had
pictured would move before him in flesh and blood, doing what he had
ordained that they should do. When the curtain rose, he had forgotten
his personal problem, had forgotten Betty. He leaned forward, his
elbows on his knees, his chin in his hand.

The scene was of a tropical island, palms, a strip of turquoise sea. A
girl pushed aside the great fronds of ferns and stepped down to the
beach. At her appearance the audience broke into applause. She was a
tall girl, her stained legs and arms bare below her ragged dress, her
black hair hung wild and free about her face and neck. As the daughter
of a native mother and an English father, her beauty had been made to
seem both Saxon and savage. Stained and painted, darkened below the
great gray eyes, Joan with her brows and her classic chin and throat,
Joan with her secret, dangerous eyes and lithe, long body, made an
arresting picture enough against the setting of vivid green and blue.
She moved slowly, deliberately,