At seven o'clock the play had been entirely run through, and Fido had the result in his prompt copy and was beginning to rapidly write it into their lines for each of the cast.
"One half hour to get breakfast and Miss Herne's back hair down," Mr. Rooney said, with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run through again fairly well we'll be done by noon, and everybody can hit the hay for six hours."
Mr. Vandeford watched his author's proud little head droop on the box rail in front of her, and with his face very white he motioned Mr. Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he would be unable to endure the pain of the repulsion he felt sure he would find in her eyes if she ever looked at him again.
But his summons of Mr. Farraday failed in peremptoriness, for that big, bonny gentleman nodded to him, then stood in the wing to catch Miss Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up between Mr. Farraday and Miss Lindsey that it would have taken months to build in a world less hectic than that in which they were then living.
Their courtship had been brief, and consisted in one question, asked by Mr. Farraday while Miss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and answered by her as she responded to him and the call of her stage lover at the same moment.
"When will you marry me?"
"When 'The Purple Slipper' goes on Broadway."
In the circumstances it was natural that Mr. Dennis Farraday should take Miss Lindsey for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only free half hour she would have for either him or food in the ensuing day, and to fail to heed Mr. Vandeford's summon.
Thus deserted, Mr. Vandeford was about to steal forth and appeal to some member of the cast of "The Purple Slipper" to come to his rescue in providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and began to burn away forever. Miss Adair raised her eyes to his, with the faith still in their wounded depths, and smiled a wan little smile.
"Please get me a glass of milk with an egg in it, and some of that brown-bread turkey," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again if I go to sleep a minute. Shake me when you get back with it, but get something for yourself while you are gone."