r
chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they were offered
to her.

Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of that
swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into her
sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the banal
words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she set her
little teeth and glared at an absent management--a management just
about now presumably distending itself with a luxurious dinner at one
of the big hotels. Deeds were what she demanded. All her life she had
been a girl of impulsive action, and she wanted to act impulsively
now. She was in much the same Berserk mood as had swept her, raging,
to the defence of Bill the parrot on the occasion of his dispute with
Henry of London. The fighting spirit which had been drained from her
by the all-night rehearsal had come back in full measure.

"What are you going to _do_?" she cried. "Aren't you going to _do_
something?"

Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully at
one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was anything
to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them, but as for
doing anything, well, what _could_ you do?

Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to them
all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was beginning
to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why not?

"We ought all to refuse to go on to-night unless they let her go on!"
Jill declared.

The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.

"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.

"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.

"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the scale.
She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause confirmed