s feet, caught my fingers in a frantic squeeze, and pushing
me from the door rapidly, said: "Yes--yes--well, do your best with it.
I'm very glad Benot found you last night!" Then turning to the new-comer,
who had not been present the day before, he cheerfully exclaimed: "Well,
you didn't lose to-day's train, I see! I have a charming comedy part for
you--come in!"

She went in, and the storm broke, for as I felt my way through the
passage leading to the stage-stairs, I heard its rolling and rumbling,
and two dimly-seen men in front of me laughed, while one, pointing over
his shoulder, toward the office, sneered, meaningly: "Ethel stock is
going down, isn't it?"

And almost I wished I was back in a family theatre.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH

I Rehearse Endlessly--I Grow Sick with Dread--I Meet with Success in
_Anne Sylvester_.

Up-stairs I found a bare stage, as is often the case for a first mere
reading of parts, and most of the company sitting on camp-stools,
chatting and laughing. Already M. Benot had announced the change in the
cast, and people looked at me in perfect stupefaction: "Good heavens!
what a risk he is taking! Who on earth is she, anyway?" and I cleared my
throat in mercy to the speaker, who didn't know I stood behind her.

That morning I was introduced to a number of the ladies and gentlemen,
but it was a mere baptism of water, not of the spirit. I was not one of
them. Understand, no one was openly rude to me, everyone bowed a
"good-morning," but, well, you can bow a good-morning over a large iron
fence with a fast-locked gate in it. That my dresses of gray linen or of
white linen struck them as being funny in September is not to be wondered
at, yet they must have known that necessity forced me to wear them, and
that their smiles were not always effaced quickly enough to spare me a
cruel pang. And my amazement grew day by day at their own extravagance of
dress. Some of the ladies wore a different costume each day during the
entire rehearsal of the play. How, I wondered, could they do it? Two of
them, Miss Kate Claxton and Miss Newton, had husbands to pay their bills,
I found, and Miss Linda Dietz--the gentlest, most sweetly-courteous
creature imaginable--had parents and a home; but the magnificence of the
others remained an unsolvable mystery.

Another thing against me was, I could not act even the least bit at
rehearsal. Foreign actors will act in cold blood at a daylight rehearsal,
but f