anby's voice was unsteady. "What rule?"

"Yes," Tinker urged. "Tell us what it was."

"After rehearsal," the star began with dignity, "I was--I--" He paused.
"I was disappointed in her."

"Ye-es?" drawled Tinker encouragingly.

Potter sent him a vicious glance, but continued: "I had hopes of
her intelligence--as an actress. She seemed to have, also, a fairly
attractive personality. I felt some little--ah, interest in her,
personally. There is something about her that--" Again he paused. "I
talked to her--about her part--at length; and finally I--ah--said I
should be glad to walk home with her, as it was after dark. She said no,
she wouldn't let me take so much trouble, because she lived almost
at the other end of Brooklyn. It seemed to me that--ah, she is very
young--you both probably noticed that--so I said I would--that is, I
offered to drive her home in a taxicab. She thanked me, but said she
couldn't. She kept saying that she was sorry, but she couldn't. It
seemed very peculiar, and, in fact, I insisted. I asked her if she
objected to me as an escort, and she said, 'Oh, no!' and got more and
more embarrassed. I wanted to know what was the matter and why she
couldn't seem to like--that is, I talked very kindly to her, very kindly
indeed. Nobody could have been kinder!" He cleared his throat loudly
and firmly, with an angry look at Tinker. "I say nobody could have been
kinder to an obscure member of the company that I was to Miss Malone.
But I was decided. That's all. That's all there was to it. I was merely
kind. That's all." He waved his hand as in dismissal of the subject.

"All?" repeated Canby. "All? You haven't--"

"Oh, yes." Potter seemed surprised at his own omission. "Oh, yes. Right
in the midst of--of what I was saying--she blurted out that she couldn't
let me take her home, because 'Lancelot' was waiting for her at a corner
drug-store."

"Lancelot!" There was a catch of dismay in Canby's outcry.

"That's what I said, 'Lancelot'!" cried Potter, more desolately than he
intended. "It seems they've been meeting after rehearsal, in their damn
corner drug-store. Lancelot!" His voice rose in fury. "If I'd known I
had a man named Lancelot in my company I'd have discharged him long
ago! If I'd known it was his name I'd have shot him. 'Lancelot!' He
came sneaking in there just after she'd blundered it all out to me. Got
uneasy because she didn't come, and came to see what was the matter.
Naturally, I dischar