which sorely offended the already irritated Francis.

"I'm--afraid it's no use. You don't seem to get it."

"What is it I don't get?" roughly demanded the actor.

"You're not genuine--either of you. You don't seem to feel it."

"Humph! We're married!" said the star, so brutally that his wife
flushed painfully. "I tell you I get all it's possible to get out of
the scene. You wrote it and you see a lot of imaginary values; but
they're not there. I'm no superman--no god! I can't give you more than
the part contains."

"Look at it in this light," Phillips argued, after a pause. "Diane is
a married woman; she, too, is fighting a battle; she is restrained by
every convention, every sense of right, every instinct of wifehood and
womanhood. Now, then, you must sweep all that aside; your own fire
must set her ablaze despite--"

"I? _I_ must do all this?" mocked the other, furiously. "Why must _I_
do it all? Make Norma play up to me. She underplays me all the time;
she's not in my key. That's what's the matter--and I'm damned tired of
this everlasting criticism."

There was a strained silence, during which the two men faced each
other threateningly, and a panic seized the woman.

She managed to say, uncertainly: "Perhaps I--should play up to you,
Irving."

"On the contrary, I don't think the fault is yours," Phillips said,
stiffly.

Again there was a dramatic silence, in which there was no element of
the make-believe. It was the clash of two strong men who disliked each
other intensely and whose masks were slipping. Neither they nor the
leading woman detected a figure stealing out from the gloom, as if
drawn by the magnetism of their anger.

"My fault, as usual," Francis sneered. "Understand this, Phillips, my
reputation means something to me, and I won't be forced out of a good
engagement by a--well, by you or by any other stage manager."

Phillips saw that same fearful look leap into the woman's eyes, and it
checked his heated retort. "I don't mean to find fault with you," he
declared, evenly. "I have the greatest respect for your ability as an
actor, but--"

The star tossed his massive head in a peculiarly aggravating manner.
"Perhaps you think you can play the part better than I?"

"Irving! _Please_!" breathed his wife.

"Show me how it should be done, if you feel it so strongly."

"Thank you, I will," Phillips answered, impulsively. "I'm not an
actor, but I wrote this piece. What's more, I lived it before