along?”      

       “I'll come directly I've unpacked and tidied myself up.”      

       “See you at the theatre, then.”      

       Sally went out and rang for the lift to take her up to her room.     

       2     

       The rehearsal had started when she reached the theatre. As she entered the dark auditorium, voices came to her with that thin and reedy effect which is produced by people talking in an empty building. She sat down at the back of the house, and, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, was able to see Gerald sitting in the front row beside a man with a bald head fringed with orange hair whom she took correctly to be Mr. Bunbury, the producer. Dotted about the house in ones and twos were members of the company whose presence was not required in the first act. On the stage, Elsa Doland, looking very attractive, was playing a scene with a man in a bowler hat. She was speaking a line, as Sally came in.     

       “Why, what do you mean, father?”      

       “Tiddly-omty-om,” was the bowler-hatted one's surprising reply.       “Tiddly-omty-om... long speech ending in 'find me in the library.' And exit,” said the man in the bowler hat, starting to do so.     

       For the first time Sally became aware of the atmosphere of nerves. Mr. Bunbury, who seemed to be a man of temperament, picked up his walking-stick, which was leaning against the next seat, and flung it with some violence across the house.     

       “For God's sake!” said Mr. Bunbury.     

       “Now what?” inquired the bowler hat, interested, pausing hallway across the stage.     

       “Do speak the lines, Teddy,” exclaimed Gerald. “Don't skip them in that sloppy fashion.”      

       “You don't want me to go over the whole thing?” asked the bowler hat, amazed.     

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