s arguing with him like this. He would
probably have said something momentous and crushing, but at this point
Jill intervened.

"Mr. Goble."

The manager swung round on her.

"What _is_ it?"

It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this
world. Two weeks before, Mr. Goble had looked on Jill with favour. She
had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with
him, followed by a refusal some days later to take a bit of supper
somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been
left to him, as most things were about this theatre, to decide which
of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have
selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the
unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental
Johnson Miller. Mr. Goble was aware that the dance-director's services
would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the
coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers
waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he
had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire
which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the
Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor on to the stage
and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller's
ideal, the dance-director had chosen her. To Mr. Goble's dislike of
Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled
potentate.

"'Jer want?" he demanded.

"Mr. Goble is extremely busy," said the stage-director. "Extremely."

A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had
troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the
battlefield confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected,
and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her
mind.

"I came to ask you to let Mae D'Arcy go on to-night."

"Who the hell's Mae D'Arcy?" Mr. Goble broke off to bellow at a
scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs. Stuyvesant van
Dyke's Long Island residence too far down stage. "Not there, you fool!
Higher up!"

"You gave her notice this evening," said Jill.

"Well, what about it?"

"We want you to withdraw it."

"Who's 'we'?"

"The other girls and myself."

Mr. Goble jerked his head so violently that the Derby hat flew off, to
be picked up, dusted, and restored by the stage-director.

"Oh, so y