could have recovered his wits so quickly
and completely. Yet the doubt remained.

To resolve it after the curtain had fallen upon a first act that had
gone with a verve unrivalled until this hour in the annals of the
company, borne almost entirely upon the slim shoulders of the new
Scaramouche, M. Binet bluntly questioned him.

They were standing in the space that did duty as green-room, the company
all assembled there, showering congratulations upon their new recruit.
Scaramouche, a little exalted at the moment by his success, however
trivial he might consider it to-morrow, took then a full revenge upon
Climene for the malicious satisfaction with which she had regarded his
momentary blank terror.

"I do not wonder that you ask," said he. "Faith, I should have warned
you that I intended to do my best from the start to put the audience
in a good humour with me. Mademoiselle very nearly ruined everything by
refusing to reflect any of my terror. She was not even startled.
Another time, mademoiselle, I shall give you full warning of my every
intention."

She crimsoned under her grease-paint. But before she could find an
answer of sufficient venom, her father was rating her soundly for her
stupidity--the more soundly because himself he had been deceived by
Scaramouche's supreme acting.

Scaramouche's success in the first act was more than confirmed as
the performance proceeded. Completely master of himself by now, and
stimulated as only success can stimulate, he warmed to his work.
Impudent, alert, sly, graceful, he incarnated the very ideal of
Scaramouche, and he helped out his own native wit by many a remembered
line from Beaumarchais, thereby persuading the better informed among the
audience that here indeed was something of the real Figaro, and bringing
them, as it were, into touch with the great world of the capital.

When at last the curtain fell for the last time, it was Scaramouche
who shared with Climene the honours of the evening, his name that was
coupled with hers in the calls that summoned them before the curtains.

As they stepped back, and the curtains screened them again from the
departing audience, M. Binet approached them, rubbing his fat hands
softly together. This runagate young lawyer, whom chance had blown into
his company, had evidently been sent by Fate to make his fortune for
him. The sudden success at Guichen, hitherto unrivalled, should be
repeated and augmented elsewhere. There would be n