"How long have you poor, long-suffering catfish been waiting here?" demanded Miss Barbara Toland, with a sort of easy sweetness that Julia found instantly enviable. "Why, we're all out in the foyer—Mother's here, chaperoning away like mad, and nearly all the others! And"—she whisked a little gold watch into sight—"my dears, it's twenty minutes to four!"
Every one exclaimed, as they rushed out. Julia, unaccountably nervous, wished she were well out of this affair, and wondered what she ought to do.
Presently some twenty-five or thirty well-dressed folk came streaming back down the main aisle in a wild confusion of laughter and talk. Somehow the principals were filtered out of this crowd, and somehow they got on the stage, and got a few lights turned on, and assembled for the advice of an agitated manager. Dowagers and sympathetic friends settled in orchestra seats to watch; the rehearsal began.
Julia had strolled up to the stage after the others; now she sat on a shabby wooden chair that had lost its back, leaned her back against a piece of scenery, and surveyed the scene with as haughty and indifferent an air as she could assume.
"And the Sergeant—who takes that?" demanded the manager, a young fellow of their own class, familiarly addressed as "Matty."
The caste, which had been churning senselessly about him, chorussed an explanation.
"A professional takes that, Mat, don't you remember?"
"Well, where is she?" Matty asked irritably.
Julia here sauntered superbly forward, serenely conscious of youth, beauty, and charm. Every one stared frankly at her, as she said languidly:
"Perhaps it's I you're looking for? Mr. Artheris—"