everybody played. As to
the neophyte, they fed and nursed him, and were in at the close of every
speech of his with a spring and a rattle which made the audience half
forget the artificiality of the scenes he clouded. Mr. Berry took as
much whisky-and-water as was good for him, and perhaps a little more,
and Paul in his nervous anxiety lent a helpful hand towards the emptying
of the bottle. There was no buzz in the cast-iron head and no cloud in
the eyes, but he was strung to a strange tension, and he was looking
forward to that last act and the embrace which crowned it.

'I shan't take the book for this last scene,' he whispered to the
prompter; 'but watch me, will you?'

The prompter nodded, and Paul passed on to the spot from which he was
to make his entrance. There was Miss Belmont waiting also. She was in
evening dress, with shining white arms and shoulders.

'Fit?' she asked laconically, buttoning a glove.

'Middling,' said Paul hoarsely.

She slid away from him through the painted doorway, and he heard her
voice on the stage. There was a pause, and someone near him whispered:

'Mr. Armstrong, go on; they're waiting.'

He obeyed. The practised woman, cool as a cucumber, gave him his cue a
second time, and continued to make the pause look rational He plunged
into the scene, awkward and constrained, but resolute, and in some
degree master of himself. It was his stage business to be awkward and
constrained, but he fared not over well, for on the stage it is easy
to go too close to nature. But at the very last he lost his nervous
tremors, and in the one scene in which he had been coached so often he
acquitted himself with credit.

'Can't you see?' he asked in the final line of his piece, and the
leading lady was in his arms again.

'I can see,' she whispered. 'Kiss me, you silly boy!'

And Paul bent his lips to hers, and kissed her in a way which looked
theatrically emotional to the house. The roller came down with a thud.

'Stay as you are,' she said; 'there is a call.'

The curtain rose again and fell again, and Paul held the leading lady in
his arms. The embrace lasted little more than a minute, but it left Paul
frantically in love--after a fashion.

This was bad in many ways, for the woman was eight years his senior and
a most heartless coquette, and Paul's infatuation kept him from his own
thoughts, which were just beginning to be of value to him.

The Dreamer in the mountains grieved wistfully as