and its glorious
possibilities.

It was not until she got into the full swing of the rehearsals that she
made a disconcerting discovery. Try as she would, she could not adapt
herself to the other members of the company. She hated their petty
jealousies and intermittent intimacies, the little intrigues and the
undercurrent of gossip that made up their days. From the first she
realized that she was looked upon as an alien. The fact that she was
shown special favors was hotly resented, and her refusal to rehearse
daily the love passages with Finnegan, the promising young comedian who
two years before had driven an ice-wagon in New Orleans, was a constant
grievance to the stage manager. In the last matter Harold Phipps had
upheld her, as he had in all others; but his very championship
constituted her chief cause of worry.

Since the day of his joining the company she had given him no opportunity
for seeing her alone. By a method of protection peculiarly her own, she
had managed to achieve an isolation as complete as an alpine blossom in
the heart of an iceberg. But in the heat and enthusiasm of a successful
try-out, when everybody was effervescing with excitement, it was
increasingly difficult to maintain this air of cold detachment.

Papa Claude alone was sufficient to warm any atmosphere. He radiated
happiness. Every afternoon, arrayed in white flannels and a soft white
hat, with a white rose in his buttonhole, he rode in his chair on the
boardwalk, bowing to right and to left with the air of a sovereign
graciously acknowledging his subjects. Night found him in the
proscenium-box at the theater, beaming upon the audience, except when he
turned vociferously to applaud Eleanor's exits and entrances.

The entire week of the first performance was nothing short of
pandemonium. Mr. Pfingst had brought a large party down from New York on
his yacht, and between rehearsals and performances there was an endless
round of suppers and dinners and sailing-parties.

With the arrival of Sunday morning Eleanor was in a state of physical and
emotional exhaustion. She was sitting before her dressing-table in a
sleeveless pink negligee, with her hair dangling in two thick childish
braids over her shoulder, when Papa Claude dashed in from the next room
to announce that Mr. Pfingst had invited the entire cast to have lunch on
his yacht.

"Not for me!" said Eleanor, sipping her coffee between yawns. "I am going
straight back to bed and