spend the whole day arguing about cats and paper-knives? For goodness' sake, clear the stage and stop wasting time.”      

       Miss Hobson chose to regard this intervention as an affront.     

       “Don't shout at me, Mr. Foster!”      

       “I wasn't shouting at you.”      

       “If you have anything to say to me, lower your voice.”      

       “He can't,” observed Miss Winch. “He's a tenor.”      

       “Nazimova never...” began Mr. Bunbury.     

       Miss Hobson was not to be diverted from her theme by reminiscences of Nazimova. She had not finished dealing with Gerald.     

       “In the shows I've been in,” she said, mordantly, “the author wasn't allowed to go about the place getting fresh with the leading lady. In the shows I've been in the author sat at the back and spoke when he was spoken to. In the shows I've been in...”      

       Sally was tingling all over. This reminded her of the dog-fight on the Roville sands. She wanted to be in it, and only the recognition that it was a private fight and that she would be intruding kept her silent. The lure of the fray, however, was too strong for her wholly to resist it. Almost unconsciously, she had risen from her place and drifted down the aisle so as to be nearer the white-hot centre of things. She was now standing in the lighted space by the orchestra-pit, and her presence attracted the roving attention of Miss Hobson, who, having concluded her remarks on authors and their legitimate sphere of activity, was looking       about for some other object of attack.     

       “Who the devil,” inquired Miss Hobson, “is that?”      

       Sally found herself an object of universal scrutiny and wished that she had remained in the obscurity of the back rows.     

       “I am Mr. Nicholas' sister,” was the best method of identification that she could find.     

       “Who's Mr. Nicholas?”      

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