deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too,
but of course not half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss
Howe wasn't game for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the
night the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It WAS monstrous.
She seemed to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody
should be paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance,
which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. That
was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was,
Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often lately and going
off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her if that was the way to
treat a man the Daily Telegraph had spoken about as it had spoken about
Hamilton Bradley. Where was she--where was he--going to find another?
No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there were difficulties, and after all
that might be the very way to lose him. But a woman had an influence,
and that influence could never be more fittingly exercised than in the
cause of dramatic art based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. Mr. Stanhope
expressed himself with a difference, but it came to that.

Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the
track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the
further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel
for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as
Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she
was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It
wasn't either as if she complained of anything in the terms--that would
be easy enough fixed--but she said herself that it was a bigger salary
than he, Llewellyn, would ever be able to pay unless she went round
with the hat. Nor had she any objection to the tour--a fascinating
one--including the Pacific Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him,
Llewellyn, to know what she did object to, and why she couldn't bark it
out at once, seeing she must understand perfectly well it was no use his
going to Bradley without first settling with her.

Hilda, alone in her own apartment--it was difficult to keep
Llewellyn Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her
signature--considered the vagary life had become for her that was so
whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely hers.
Alicia knew, of course; but that was as if she had written it