n the stage as real
people," Vaughan answered.

"Don't you, really? Well, you ought to know. You have made a sort of
corner in 'leading ladies'. What curious clothes she wears!"

"Doesn't she? On the stage she dresses like an actress, and off the
stage she doesn't dress like a lady. She's so extraordinarily vague," he
said.

"Yes; and yet I've heard that, though she's so dreamy and romantic,
she's quite wonderfully practical, really. She never accepts an
engagement unless she gets a large salary--and all that sort of thing."

"I see. She lives in the clouds, but she insists on their having a
silver lining," said Vaughan. "Who's the pink young man she's confiding
in now?"

"It's Mr. Rathbone. He likes theatres--at least he collects programmes
and posters, I think. Besides, he's tattooed."

"Oh, yes. That must be a great help in listening to Miss Luscombe. He's
been trained to suffer."

Miss Luscombe was talking rather loudly and most confidentially to
Rathbone, who had an expression of willing--but agonised--martyrdom on
his fair pink, clean-shaven features.

"I _told_ dear George Alexander that I would have been only _too_
pleased to understudy Irene in the new piece--in fact, it would have
just suited me, Mr. Rathbone, and left me plenty of time for my social
engagements too. Besides, if I once got a chance of a part like that I
feel I should have made a hit. Oh, it was a cruel disappointment! After
being too charming to me--or, at any rate, I was charming to him at the
Cashmores' reception, you know--I remember he was standing in the
refreshment-room with Mrs. Cashmore, and I went _straight_ up to him and
said, 'Don't you remember me, Mr. Alexander?'--and after all this he
only promised me--and that conditionally--a horrid, silly little part in
the curtain-raiser in No. 2 B Company on tour. On tour! Of course I
refused that--one must keep up one's prestige, Mr. Rathbone. There's a
great deal of injustice in the profession. Talent counts for
nothing--it's all influence. But I've always had a great ambition ever
since I was a little girl." Miss Luscombe put her head on one side and
talked as she had to the interviewer of _The Perfect Lady_. "It was
always my dream--do you know?--to marry a great actor--or, at any rate,
to be his great friend--like Irving and Ellen Terry--that sort of
thing--a great, lifelong friendship! And as a child I was madly in love
with the elder George Grossmith, but I don't think he ev