standing in her proper position in the wings, awaiting
another entry, the great comedian made his exit past her and paused in
recognition.

"You can just leave that in hereafter," he remarked, seeing how
intelligent she appeared. "Don't add any more, though."

"Thank you," said Carrie, humbly. When he went on she found herself
trembling violently.

"Well, you're in luck," remarked another member of the chorus. "There
isn't another one of us has got a line."

There was no gainsaying the value of this. Everybody in the company
realised that she had got a start. Carrie hugged herself when next
evening the lines got the same applause. She went home rejoicing,
knowing that soon something must come of it. It was Hurstwood who, by
his presence, caused her merry thoughts to flee and replaced them with
sharp longings for an end of distress.

The next day she asked him about his venture.

"They're not trying to run any cars except with police. They don't want
anybody just now--not before next week."

Next week came, but Carrie saw no change. Hurstwood seemed more
apathetic than ever. He saw her off mornings to rehearsals and the like
with the utmost calm. He read and read. Several times he found himself
staring at an item, but thinking of something else. The first of these
lapses that he sharply noticed concerned a hilarious party he had once
attended at a driving club, of which he had been a member. He sat,
gazing downward, and gradually thought he heard the old voices and the
clink of glasses.

"You're a dandy, Hurstwood," his friend Walker said. He was standing
again well dressed, smiling, good-natured, the recipient of encores for
a good story.

All at once he looked up. The room was so still it seemed ghostlike.
He heard the clock ticking audibly and half suspected that he had been
dozing. The paper was so straight in his hands, however, and the items
he had been reading so directly before him, that he rid himself of the
doze idea. Still, it seemed peculiar. When it occurred a second time,
however, it did not seem quite so strange.

Butcher and grocery man, baker and coal man--not the group with whom he
was then dealing, but those who had trusted him to the limit--called. He
met them all blandly, becoming deft in excuse. At last he became bold,
pretended to be out, or waved them off.

"They can't get blood out of a turnip," he said, "if I had it I'd pay
them."

Carrie's little soldier friend, Miss Osborne, s