.

"I still may have the heart to play
A tune that you can dance to."

Brown thought as he watched her that she showed promise as an actress.
Why had he not noticed it before. He meditated a proposal by which she
should be persuaded to join the company again when it started out on its
Spring tour. Fanny had told him that Joan was tired of the life and
meant to go back to office work, but if she had talent, that was of
course absurd. Perhaps he had not done enough to encourage her.
To-morrow he would have a good long talk with her and point out to her
just how things stood.

Fanny, too, was impressed by Joan's powers. "You act as if you really
meant it, honey," she said. "You make me want to cry in that last bit
where Franzi goes off and leaves me, a bloated aristocrat on the throne,
with my erring husband beside me. You make me think you feel it."

"Perhaps I do," Joan answered; "perhaps I am going back alone."

"But why," Fanny cried out; she ran to Joan and threw her arms round the
other girl, they were in the dressing-room making up for the evening
performance. "Why, honey? He is ready to go with you."

"And the Prince was ready to go with Franzi," Joan answered, "but she
would not take him, not back into her land of shadows. Oh, Fanny, you
are a dear, romantic soul, but you don't understand. Once, long ago when
I was young, doesn't that sound romantic, there were two paths open to
me and I chose the one which has to be travelled alone. If I dragged him
on to it now it would only hurt him. You would not want to hurt
something you loved," her voice dropped to a whisper, "would you?"

"No," Fanny admitted. She had drawn a little back and was watching Joan
with wide eyes. "But----" she broke off abruptly. "I haven't any right
to ask," she said, "but do you mean that there is something which you
have done that you would be ashamed to tell him."

"Not exactly ashamed," Joan answered, "it would hurt him to know, that
is all. I came to London two years ago because I was going to have a
baby. It was never born, because I was in an accident a few months
before it should have come."

"But why tell him, why tell him?" Fanny clamoured. "Men have lots of
secrets in their lives which they don't tell to good women, why must
they want to know all about our pasts. I have always thought I should
tell a man just exactly as much as I wanted to and not a whisper more.
Honey," she drew close again and caught hold of