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The performance of Hamlet by the Lady Hyacinths is still remembered by those who saw it as the most bewildering entertainment of their theatrical experience. The play had been cut down to its absolute essentials and the players, though drilled and coached in their lines and business, had been left quite free in the matters of interpretation and accent. The result was so unique that the daily press fell upon it with whoops of joy and published portraits of and interviews with the leading characters. People who had thought that only ferries and docks lay south of Twenty-third Street penetrated to the heart of the great East Side and went home again full of an altruism which lasted three days. And on the last night of the “run” of three nights, Jack Burgess brought Albert Marsden to witness it. Other spectators had always emerged dumb or inarticulate from the ordeal but the great actor was not one of them. He was blusterous and garrulous and, to Burgess’ amazement, not at all amused.

“Who is that girl who played Ophelia? Is she an East Side working girl or one of the mission people?”

“She’s a shop-girl,” answered Burgess. “There’s no good in your asking me to introduce you to her for I won’t. That’s been one of our rules from the beginning. We don’t want the children to be upset and patronized.”

“Who taught her to act?”

“Well, I coached them all as you know, but she never seemed to require any special teaching. Pretty good, isn’t she?”

“Pretty good! She is a genius–a wonder. This is all rot about my not meeting her. I am going to meet her and train her. I suppose you have noticed that she is a beauty too.”

“But she’s only a child,” Burgess urged. “She’s only eighteen. She couldn’t stand the life and the work and she couldn’t stand the people. You have no idea what high ideals these girls have, and Mary Conners–that’s the girl’s name–seems to be exceptional even amongst them.”

“Too good for us, eh?” asked the actor.

“Entirely too good,” answered Burgess steadily.

“And do you feel justified in deciding her future for her! In condemning her to an obscure life in the slums instead of a successful career on the stage?”

“I do not,” answered Burgess, “she must decide that for herself. I’ll ask her and let you know.”

To this end he sought Miss Masters. “I want you,” said he, “to ask Mary Conners to tea with you to-morrow afternoon. It will be Sunday so she can manage. And then I want you to leave us alone. I have something very serious to say to her.”

Margaret looked at him and laughed. “Then you were right,” said she, “and I was wrong; I had found a wife for you.”

“For absolute inane, insensate romanticism,” said he, “I recommend you to the recently engaged. You used to have some sense. You were clever enough to refuse me and now you go and forever ruin my opinion of you by making a remark like that.”

“It is not romanticism at all,” she maintained. “It is the best of common sense. You will never be satisfied with anyone you haven’t trained and formed to suit your own ideals. And you will never find such a ‘quick study’ as Mary.”

It was the earliest peep of spring and Burgess stopped on his way to Miss Masters’ house and bought a sheaf of white hyacinths and pale maiden hair for the little Lady Hyacinth who was waiting for him.

As soon as he was alone with her he managed to distract her attention from her flowers and to make her listen to Marsden’s message. He set the case before her plainly. Without exaggeration and without extenuation.

“And we don’t expect you,” he ended, “to make up your mind at once. You must consult your relatives and friends.”

“I have no relatives,” she answered.

“Your friends then.”

“I don’t think I have many. Some of the girls in the club perhaps. The old book-keeper in the store where I work, perhaps Miss Masters.”