She turned, calling imperatively into the wings: "Ring down!"
Followed a pause of dumb amazement. In all the house, during the space of thirty pulse-beats, no one moved. Then Max rapped out an oath and slipped like quicksilver from the box.
Simultaneously the woman's foot stamped an echo from the boards.
"Ring down!" she cried. "Do you hear? Ring down!"
With a rush the curtain descended as pandemonium broke out on both sides of it.
VII
THE LATE EXTRA
Impulsively Whitaker got up to follow Max, then hesitated and sank back in doubt, his head awhirl. He was for the time being shocked out of all capacity for clear reasoning or right thinking. Uppermost in his consciousness he had a half-formed notion that it wouldn't help matters if he were to force himself in upon the crisis behind the scenes.
Beyond all question his wife had recognized in him the man whom she had been given every reason to believe dead: a discovery so unnerving as to render her temporarily unable to continue. But if theatrical precedent were a reliable guide, she would presently pull herself together and go on; people of the stage seldom forget that their first duty is to the audience. If he sat tight and waited, all might yet be well—as well as any such hideous coil could be hoped ever to be....