. You stay here quiet and let us all get away; we will be
walking over to the 'Queen's,' you see, then you can slip out after we
have gone and cut home on your own. I will tell Brown you are
over-wrought after the show, it is quite natural you should be."

"Yes," admitted Joan; she hesitated on her way out, for the call boy had
just run down the passage shouting her name, "and, Fanny, if he is
there"--she met the other girl's eyes just for a moment--"take him along
with you, will you? I--I am afraid of meeting him to-night."

Joan caught Dick's eyes just for a second before she began her first
song, but she was careful not to look his way again. For the rest she
moved and acted in a dream, not conscious of the theatre or the
audience. Yet she knew she must be playing her part passably well, for
Strachan whispered to her at the end of the duet: "You are doing
splendidly." And Brown himself was waiting to greet her with
congratulations when she ran into the wings for a moment.

The heat of the theatre killed her violets; they were crushed and dead
at the end of the second act, yet when she changed for the third she
picked them up and pinned them in again. Franzi's part in the third act
is very brief. She is called in to give evidence of the Prince's
infidelity, and instead she persuades the Princess that her husband has
always loved her. Then, as the happy pair kiss one another at the back
of the stage, Franzi turns to the audience, taking them, as it were,
into her confidence:

"Now love has come to me, I pray,
That while I have the chance to,
I still may have the heart to play
A tune that you can dance to."

Joan's voice broke on the last line, the little sob on which she caught
her breath was more effective than any carefully-thought-out tragedy.
With her eyes held by those other eyes in the audience she took the
violets from her belt and held them, just for a second, to her lips.
Then they fell from her hands and she stood, her last farewell said,
straight and silent, while the house shouted over what they considered
to be a very fine piece of acting. They would have liked to have had her
back to bow to them after the fall of the curtain, but Joan would not
go, and Fanny brought Brown to realize that if the girl were worried in
any way she would probably wax hysterical.

"Fine acting," Brown kept repeating over and over again. Joan heard him
vaguely. He was so impressed by it, however, th