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“Now then, Miss Fuller,” said young Garvey, the director, “you come into the garden, see? You’ve noticed Joyce go out through the French window and you suspect she’s gone to meet Talbot. We show just a flash of you looking out of the drawing-room windows into the garden. Then you just glance over your shoulder to where your husband is sitting in the library, reading, and you slip away, see? Then we jump to where you find them in the garden. Wait a minute”–He consulted the sheaf of typewritten sheets in his hand–“yeh–here it says: ‘Joyce is keeping her tryst under the great oak in the garden with her lover.’ Yeh. Wait a minute … ‘tryst under tree with’–well, you come quickly forward–down to about here–and you say: ‘Ah, there you are!'”

Harrietta looked at him for a long, long minute. Her lips were parted. Her breath came quickly. She spoke: “I say–what?”

“You say: ‘Ah, there you are.'”

“Never!” said Harrietta Fuller, and brought her closed fist down on her open palm for emphasis. “Never!”

* * * * *

It was August when she again was crossing desert, plains, and farmlands. It was the tail-end of a dusty, hot, humid August in New York when Ken stood at the station, waiting. As he came forward, raising one arm, her own arm shot forward in quick protest, even while her glad eyes held his.

“Don’t take it off!”

“What off?”

“Your hat. Don’t take it off. Kiss me–but leave your hat on.”

She clutched his arm. She looked up at him. They were in the taxi bound for Fifty-sixth Street. “She moved? She’s out? She’s gone? You told her I’d pay her anything–a bonus—-” Then, as he nodded, she leaned back, relaxed. Something in her face prompted him.

“You’re young and beautiful and bewitching,” said Ken.

“Keep on saying it,” pleaded Harrietta. “Make a chant of it.” …

Sam Klein, the veteran, was the first to greet her when she entered the theatre at that first September rehearsal. The company was waiting for her. She wasn’t late. She had just pleasantly escaped being unpunctual. She came in, cool, slim, electric. Then she hesitated. For the fraction of a second she hesitated. Then Sam Klein greeted her: “Company’s waiting, Miss Fuller, if you’re ready.” And the leading man came forward, a flower in his buttonhole, carefully tailored and slightly yellow as a leading man of forty should be at 10:30 A. M. “How wonderful you’re looking, Harrietta,” he said.

Sam Klein took her aside. “You’re going to make the hit of your career in this part, Miss Fuller. Yessir, dear, the hit of your career. You mark my words.”

“Don’t you think,” stammered Harrietta–“don’t you think it will take someone–someone–younger–to play the part?”

“Younger than what?”

“Than I.”

Sam Klein stared. Then he laughed. “Younger than you! Say, listen, do you want to get the Gerry Society after me?”

And as he turned away a Young Thing with worshipful eyes crept up to Harrietta’s side and said tremulously: “Oh, Miss Fuller, this is my first chance on Broadway, and may I tell you how happy I am to be playing with you? You’ve been my ideal ever since I was a–for a long, long time.”