“Not at all. Believe me, this—this bright stuff is entirely misplaced.”

So she came on again, and this time resembled a woman torn by conscience after rifling a church of its plate.

“And now you go to the opposite extreme—you will have no emotions left for the big moment in the last act, if the opening of a door causes you so much distress.”

When the ordeal was over, Mornice was a trifle piqued.

“I don’t think he ought to have gone for me like that before the company, Ron—do you?”

But Ronald Knight was an honest lad, and answered:

“After all, there was sound stuff in what he said.”

A reply which put him in prompt disfavour for a period of twenty-six hours, at the end of which time they met, by a kind of mutual magnetism, and kissed each other with enthusiasm in the dressing-room corridor.

“You are sorry for what you said?”

“I am sorry it offended you, but I think it is up to us to do what the old chap wants. After all, he’s taking a big risk.”