“Your cue, Miss Bryce.”
She fumbled her script, blushed furiously, found the place, and read stupidly, beginning with the cue.
“ . . . Where is she? Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five, sir.”
“Well, get up,” ordered Jenkins, testily. “You enter R., upper door. Come front and answer Horton, who stands L. C. Then you exit L., up stage.”
They all looked at her now. She felt their impatience, their supercilious smiles. She knew she was that leper in the theatre—an amateur. She did not know what Jenkins was talking about with his down R’s, and his up L’s. He entered as Mary and showed her the business. She caught the idea at once, and he grunted something which might have been approval or a curse. The rest of the time she spent in fevered attention to the script, looking for the signal, “Mary,” but it came no more in that act. They went all over it again, and she managed it without a hitch. Then they were dismissed until two o’clock, and every one hurried off for lunch.
Isabelle waited, thinking that of course Cartel would ask her to lunch with him. But there were no signs of him. She inquired where his office was, and ascended the stairs with the intention of expressing her dissatisfaction with her part. She stopped outside the door at the sound of voices—Cartel’s and Wally’s. She went in.
“Well!” exploded her father, “so there you are!”
“Good morning, Wally. Max wired you?”
“She did. You will come home with me at once.”