ring home against him the charge
of untruthfulness, or even of exaggeration.

Because it was in a simple panic that Rose, on the morning after
Rodney's visit, had gone to Goldsmith and demanded to be transferred to
the second company, which had started rehearsing as soon as a month of
capacity business had demonstrated that the piece was a success.

Goldsmith was disgusted. Little Alec had been right about that, too. The
unnaturalness of the request--for indeed it flew straight in the face of
all traditions that a girl who might stay in Chicago if she liked,
taking it easy and having a lot of fun, and rejoicing in the possession
of a job that was going to last for months, should deliberately swap
this highly desirable position for the hazards and discomforts of a
second-rate road company, playing one-night stands over the kerosene
circuit--was one too many for him. He demanded explanations without
getting any. And as Jimmy Wallace had guessed, it was not until she'd
convinced him that in no circumstances would she stay on in the Chicago
company that he assented to the transfer. He didn't abandon his attempts
to dissuade her until the very last moment. But neither his pictures of
the discomforts of the road, nor his carefully veiled promises of
further advancement if she stayed in Chicago, had the slightest effect
on her. All that she wanted was to get away, and as quickly as she
could!

The collapse of her courage was not quite the sudden thing it seemed.
Forces she was vaguely aware had been at work, but didn't realize the
seriousness of, had been undermining it steadily since the opening night
when she recognized Jimmy Wallace in the audience, and when later she
parted from Galbraith with his promise of a New York job as soon as he
could get his own affairs ready for her.

Chief of these forces was the simple reaction of fatigue. Strong as she
was, she had abused her strength somewhat during the last weeks of
rehearsal; had taken on and triumphantly accomplished more than any one
has a right to accomplish without calculating on replacing his depleted
capital of energy afterward. It was her first experience with this sort
of exhaustion, and she hadn't learned (indeed it is a lesson she never
did fully learn) to accept the phase with philosophic calm as the
inevitable alternate to the high-tension effective one.

She missed Galbraith horribly. She had, as she'd told him, personified
the show as a mere projection of