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“You must indeed be in a dreadful state. Anxiety for another is still worse than anxiety for one’s self.”

“For another?” Wayworth repeated, looking at her over the rim of his cup.

“My poor friend, you’re nervous about Nona Vincent, but you’re infinitely more nervous about Violet Grey.”

“She IS Nona Vincent!”

“No, she isn’t–not a bit!” said Mrs. Alsager, abruptly.

“Do you really think so?” Wayworth cried, spilling his tea in his alarm.

“What I think doesn’t signify–I mean what I think about that. What I meant to say was that great as is your suspense about your play, your suspense about your actress is greater still.”

“I can only repeat that my actress IS my play.”

Mrs. Alsager looked thoughtfully into the teapot.

“Your actress is your–“

“My what?” the young man asked, with a little tremor in his voice, as his hostess paused.

“Your very dear friend. You’re in love with her–at present.” And with a sharp click Mrs. Alsager dropped the lid on the fragrant receptacle.

“Not yet–not yet!” laughed her visitor.

“You will be if she pulls you through.”

“You declare that she WON’T pull me through.”

Mrs. Alsager was silent a moment, after which she softly murmured: “I’ll pray for her.”

“You’re the most generous of women!” Wayworth cried; then coloured as if the words had not been happy. They would have done indeed little honour to a man of tact.

The next morning he received five hurried lines from Mrs. Alsager. She had suddenly been called to Torquay, to see a relation who was seriously ill; she should be detained there several days, but she had an earnest hope of being able to return in time for his first night. In any event he had her unrestricted good wishes. He missed her extremely, for these last days were a great strain and there was little comfort to be derived from Violet Grey. She was even more nervous than himself, and so pale and altered that he was afraid she would be too ill to act. It was settled between them that they made each other worse and that he had now much better leave her alone. They had pulled Nona so to pieces that nothing seemed left of her– she must at least have time to grow together again. He left Violet Grey alone, to the best of his ability, but she carried out imperfectly her own side of the bargain. She came to him with new questions–she waited for him with old doubts, and half an hour before the last dress-rehearsal, on the eve of production, she proposed to him a totally fresh rendering of his heroine. This incident gave him such a sense of insecurity that he turned his back on her without a word, bolted out of the theatre, dashed along the Strand and walked as far as the Bank. Then he jumped into a hansom and came westward, and when he reached the theatre again the business was nearly over. It appeared, almost to his disappointment, not bad enough to give him the consolation of the old playhouse adage that the worst dress-rehearsals make the best first nights.

The morrow, which was a Wednesday, was the dreadful day; the theatre had been closed on the Monday and the Tuesday. Every one, on the Wednesday, did his best to let every one else alone, and every one signally failed in the attempt. The day, till seven o’clock, was understood to be consecrated to rest, but every one except Violet Grey turned up at the theatre. Wayworth looked at Mr. Loder, and Mr. Loder looked in another direction, which was as near as they came to conversation. Wayworth was in a fidget, unable to eat or sleep or sit still, at times almost in terror. He kept quiet by keeping, as usual, in motion; he tried to walk away from his nervousness. He walked in the afternoon toward Notting Hill, but he succeeded in not breaking the vow he had taken not to meddle with his actress. She was like an acrobat poised on a slippery ball–if he should touch her she would topple over. He passed her door three times and he thought of her three hundred. This was the hour at which he most regretted that Mrs. Alsager had not come back–for he had called at her house only to learn that she was still at Torquay. This was probably queer, and it was probably queerer still that she hadn’t written to him; but even of these things he wasn’t sure, for in losing, as he had now completely lost, his judgment of his play, he seemed to himself to have lost his judgment of everything. When he went home, however, he found a telegram from the lady of Grosvenor Place–“Shall be able to come–reach town by seven.” At half-past eight o’clock, through a little aperture in the curtain of the “Renaissance,” he saw her in her box with a cluster of friends–completely beautiful and beneficent. The house was magnificent–too good for his play, he felt; too good for any play. Everything now seemed too good–the scenery, the furniture, the dresses, the very programmes. He seized upon the idea that this was probably what was the matter with the representative of Nona–she was only too good. He had completely arranged with this young lady the plan of their relations during the evening; and though they had altered everything else that they had arranged they had promised each other not to alter this. It was wonderful the number of things they had promised each other. He would start her, he would see her off–then he would quit the theatre and stay away till just before the end. She besought him to stay away–it would make her infinitely easier. He saw that she was exquisitely dressed–she had made one or two changes for the better since the night before, and that seemed something definite to turn over and over in his mind as he rumbled foggily home in the four- wheeler in which, a few steps from the stage-door, he had taken refuge as soon as he knew that the curtain was up. He lived a couple of miles off, and he had chosen a four-wheeler to drag out the time.