The star was seated by the footlights; her eyes were on a short, stout, authoritative stranger who was haranguing the stage director about a door somewhere, damn it! that had banged all through every act. He turned to Miss Dover with a shaking head and smiled wearily.
“Well, where is the little lady?”
Miss Dover rose and drew Vinnie forward. “I imagine you’ve seen my maid before,” she said; “but I suppose you’ve never met.” She laughed at the jest. “Vinnie, this is Mr. Littleton; Mr. B. B. Littleton, one of the biggest managers in this country.” She smiled at the magnate. “And this is Miss Vinnie Smith, Mr. Littleton.”
Littleton’s shrewd, critical eyes swept Vinnie from top to toe.
“Well, Miss Vinnie Smith, what can you do?” His voice was gruffly jocose. “Can you act?”
The two successful personages on the bare stage did not realize that at that very moment they were watching what Vinnie Smith could really do—act. They did not dream that the name of B. B. Littleton had swept through her brain and whirled a past before her—a past that a histrionic instinct stronger than her will itself was forcing back to its old place.
They did not notice that she had stiffened defiantly. All they saw was a singularly good-looking, phlegmatic maid-servant, coolly unafraid, who seemed quite unimpressed with the possibilities of the situation.
“You’d better go over some of those speeches I heard you doing, Vinnie. Mr. Littleton will only want—”
“Yes, anything’ll do,” broke in the manager. “Fire away!” He pulled out his watch impatiently. “By George! it’s quarter-past eleven now, and I’m due uptown at twelve. Got to meet that Madame—what the devil’s her name, now?—you know, Sarah, that big French comedienne, Madame—Madame—” Each “Madame” grew more and more remote as he stalked up and down the stage, fumbling in his pockets, chewing a cigar, flipping out letter after letter, grumbling, jamming them back. “Confound it, if there isn’t that door banging again! Wilson!”
As the feet of Wilson’s assistant pattered obediently up the iron steps, Vinnie was explaining. “Oh, Miss Dover, I only made those scenes up. I was only—”