fided to him that she was afraid of men, was now
practically daring an undoubted scoundrel to lure her up to the great
city and make a lady of her. And she had been afraid of all but a
clergyman and a stunt actor! He wondered interestingly if she were
afraid of Merton Gill. She seemed not to be.

On another day of long waits they ate their lunch from the cafeteria box
on the steps of the little home and discussed stage names. "I guess
we better can that 'Clifford Armytage' stuff," she told him as she
seriously munched a sandwich. "We don't need it. That's out. Merton Gill
is a lot better name." She had used "we" quite as if it were a community
name.

"Well, if you think so--" he began regretfully, for Clifford Armytage
still seemed superior to the indistinction of Merton Gill.

"Sure, it's a lot better," she went on. "That 'Clifford Armytage'--say,
it reminds me of just another such feckless dub as you that acted with
us one time when we all trouped in a rep show, playing East Lynne and
such things. He was just as wise as you are, and when he joined out at
Kansas City they gave him a whole book of the piece instead of just his
sides. He was a quick study, at that, only he learned everybody's part
as well as his own, and that slowed him. They put him on in Waco, and
the manager was laid up, so they told him that after the third act he
was to go out and announce the bill for the next night, and he learned
that speech, too.

"He got on fine till the big scene in the third act. Then he went bloody
because that was as far as he'd learned, so he just left the scene cold
and walked down to the foots and bowed and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen,
we thank you for your attendance here this evening and to-morrow night
we shall have the honour of presenting Lady Audley's Secret.'

"With that he gave a cold look to the actors back of him that were
gasping like fish, and walked off. And he was like you in another way
because his real name was Eddie Duffy, and the lovely stage name he'd
picked out was Clyde Maltravers."

"Well, Clifford Armytage is out, then," Merton announced, feeling
that he had now buried a part of his dead self in a grave where Beulah
Baxter, the wonder-woman, already lay interred. Still, he was conscious
of a certain relief. The stage name had been bothersome.

"It ain't as if you had a name like mine," the girl went on. "I simply
had to have help."

He wondered what her own name was. He had never heard her