Elman shook his dark head.
"I'm warning you," he said, quietly. "I want you both to brace up. You'll need all the nerve you've got, and then some, to get through what's before us. He'll probably have an entirely new idea of your part, Stella; and I don't doubt he'll want Miss Iverson to rewrite most of her play. But you'll both get through all right. You're not quitters, you know."
His brown eyes, passing in turn from my face to hers, warmed at what he saw in them. When he began to speak we had been relaxed, depressed, almost discouraged. Lack of sleep, nervous strain, endless rehearsals had broken down our confidence and sapped our energy; but now, in the sudden lift of Stella Merrick's head, the quick straightening of her shoulders, I caught a reflection of the change that was taking place in me. At the first prospect of battle we were both as ready for action as Highland regiments when the bagpipes begin to snarl. Looking at us, Elman's pale face lit up with one of his rare and brilliant smiles.
"That's right," he said, heartily. "A word to the wise. And now I'm really off."
Almost before the door had closed behind him Miss Merrick had seized her hat and was driving her hat-pins through it with quick, determined fingers.
"I'm going home and to bed," she said. "We can both get in three hours' sleep before the rehearsal—and believe me, Miss Iverson, we'll need it! Do you remember what General Sherman said about war? He should have saved his words for a description of 'T. B.'"
I followed her out into the hall and to the elevator door. I felt oddly exhilarated, almost as if I had been given some powerfully stimulating drug.
"He doesn't exactly kill, burn, or pillage, does he?" I asked, gaily.
With one foot in the elevator, our star stopped a second and looked back at me. There was a world of meaning in her blue eyes.
"If he did nothing but that, my lamb!" she breathed, and dropped from sight.