mind to write a truthful letter to Loraine Haswell and go to Marcia
with a proposal of marriage. He felt only his need of her--and her
importance to himself. He failed to reckon on the thousand misgivings
and indecisions which would assail him between the moment of impulse and
that of execution. But his eyes were sincere and Dorothy believed them.
She went to her desk and brought back a sheet of paper.

"That's the route for this week--and next," she said. "After that you
must either find out for yourself or go without knowing."

That night with the holiday spirit of a lad let out of a cheerless
school Paul Burton walked along the principal street of a small New
England town where old-fashioned houses sprawled between stark elms.
When he reached the Palace Theater, the performance had begun, so he
hurriedly bought a ticket and found himself sitting near the front
with many empty seats about him. It was a cheap "follow up" company
with an old piece that had once been a Broadway hit. He had never
seen Marcia act. Now he was seeing her under the most inauspicious
circumstances--and he knew that only want of opportunity and the
uncompromising plane on which she had pitched her dealings in managerial
offices had balked her ambitions. She could act and was acting with a
force, intelligence and finesse that were wasted here, and as he watched
her suddenly their eyes met and across the blazing separation of the
"foots" she recognized him. For just an instant her pupils dilated and
she missed a cue. It looked as though she would "go up" in her lines,
but before the prompter could come to her aid she had recovered herself
and her performance went on unbroken. But during the following
intermission the women who dressed near by could hear her humming a gay
tune, and as she came out at her call they saw in her eyes a sparkle
that had not been there before.

As Marcia sat in her dressing-room before the mirror which was fastened
against a brick wall, the squalidness of the cubbyhole ceased to depress
her. On the slab before her lay scattered the details of make-up, and
crowded into one corner stood her open wardrobe trunk. A placard near a
light-bulb read, "Please remember that YOU are here for a few days, but
we are here all the time. Do not deface our home," and under that
notice, probably tempted by it into irony, a former occupant had
scrawled in huge letters "Oh, you home!"

But now the chilly little dressing-room was no lon