t is it? The
excitement has been too much for you."

"No, I am just happy," sobbed Helen. "I am just happy for him."

"We will go and tell him so, then," said Lady Gower. "I am sure he
would like to hear it from you to-night."

Philip was standing in the centre of the stage, surrounded by many
pretty ladies and elderly men. Wimpole was hovering over him as though
he had claims upon him by the right of discovery.

But when Philip saw Helen, he pushed his way toward her eagerly and
took her hand in both of his.

"I am so glad, Phil," she said. She felt it all so deeply that she was
afraid to say more, but that meant so much to her that she was sure he
would understand.

He had planned it very differently. For a year he had dreamed that, on
the first night of his play, there would be a supper, and that he
would rise and drink her health, and tell his friends and the world
that she was the woman he loved, and that she had agreed to marry him,
and that at last he was able, through the success of his play, to make
her his wife.

And now they met in a crowd to shake hands, and she went her way with
one of her grand ladies, and he was left among a group of chattering
strangers. The great English playwright took him by the hand and in
the hearing of all praised him gracefully and kindly. It did not
matter to Philip whether the older playwright believed what he said or
not; he knew it was generously meant.

"I envy you this," the great man was saying. "Don't lose any of it,
stay and listen to all they have to say. You will never live through
the first night of your first play but once."

"Yes, I hear them," said Philip, nervously; "they are all too kind.
But I don't hear the voice I have been listening for," he added, in a
whisper. The older man pressed his hand again quickly. "My dear boy,"
he said, "I am sorry."

"Thank you," Philip answered.

Within a week he had forgotten the great man's fine words of praise,
but the clasp of his hand he cherished always.

Helen met Marion as she was leaving the stage-door and stopped to
congratulate her on her success in the new part. Marion was radiant.
To Helen she seemed obstreperously happy and jubilant.

"And, Marion," Helen began, bravely, "I also want to congratulate you
on something else. You--you--neither of you have told me yet," she
stammered, "but I am such an old friend of both that I will not be
kept out of the secret." At these words Marion's air of triumphant