that,
don't speak to you? Were you not welcomed----"

I broke his speech with laughter, but he would not smile: "Were you not
properly treated? Who was lacking in courtesy?"

"Oh, please," I hurried, "don't blame anyone. You see there were no
introductions made, and of course I should have remembered that the
hospitality of the East is more--er--well, cautious than that of the
West, and besides I must look very woolly and wild to your people."

"Ah!" he broke in, "then in a measure the fault is mine, since worry and
trouble kept me away from the green-room. But Benot should have made
introductions in my place--and--well, I'm ashamed of the women! cats!
cats!"

"Oh, no!" I laughed, "not yet, surely not yet!"

Suddenly he returned to the part: "You will tell the people that you were
to play _Anne_ in the first place."

"But, Mr. Daly," I cried, "the whole company saw me receive the part of
_Blanche_."

He gnawed at the end of his mustache in frowning thought. "One woman to
whom it belongs refuses the part," he said; "another woman, who can't
play it, demands it from me, and I want to stop her mouth by making her
believe the part was given to you before I knew her desire for it--do you
see?"

Yes, with round-eyed astonishment, I saw that this almost tyrannically
high-handed ruler had someone to placate--someone to deceive.

"You will therefore tell the people you received _Anne_ last night."

I was silent, hot, miserable.

"Do you hear?" he asked, angrily. "Good God! everything goes wrong. The
idiot that was to dramatize the story of "Man and Wife" for me has failed
in his work; the play is announced, and I have been up all night writing
and arranging a last act for it myself. If Miss Davenport thinks she has
been refused _Anne_, she will take her revenge by refusing to play
_Blanche_, and the cast is so full it will require all my people--you
_must_ say you received the part last night!"

"Mr. Daly," I said, "won't you please trust to my discretion. I don't
like lying, even for my daily bread, but if silence is golden, a discreet
silence is away above rubies."

He struck his hand angrily on the desk before him: "Miss Morris, when I
give an order----"

Up went my head: "Mr. Daly, I have nothing to do with your private
affairs; any business order----"

Heaven knows where we would have brought up had not a sudden darkness
come into the little room--a woman quickly passed the window. Mr. Daly
sprang to hi