'Oh! Armorel, I am horribly frightened. If I should break down, Archie's chance will be ruined. And if I recite it badly I shall spoil the play.' 'You will not break down, dear; you will think of nothing but the play. You will forget the people. Besides, it will be so dark that you will hardly see them.' 'I will try my best. Perhaps when I begin--Oh! for Archie's sake, I would stand up on the stage at the theatre and speak before all the people! And yet----' 'She had no sleep last night,' said her brother. 'I think, after all, I had better read it. Only I read so badly.' Armorel's face fell. She had thought so much of the reciting. Then Mrs. Elstree came to the rescue. 'Nonsense,' she said. 'You three people are making yourselves so nervous that you will most certainly break down. Now, Mr. Wilmot, go into your own place. Set out your dolls. Here's your cardboard back scene.' She arranged it while Archie got himself and his crutches into the chair behind, and began to take the dolls out of their box. 'So. Now don't speak to your sister. You will only make her worse. And as for you, Effie, if you break down now you will be a most disgraceful coward. With your brother's future, perhaps, dependent on your courage. For shame! Pull yourself together!' Effie, thus rudely stimulated, and by a person she disliked greatly, lost her limpness and stood upright. Her face also put on a little colour, and her lips stiffened. The tonic worked, in fact. Then Zoe went on. 'Now,' she said, 'take up your position here. How are you going to stand? Fold your hands so. That is a very good attitude to begin with. Of course, you understand nothing of gesture. Don't try it. Change your hands a little--so--front--right--left--like that. And don't--don't--don't hold your head like that, facing the crowd. Hold it up--like this. Look at the corner of that cornice--straight up. Oh! you will lower your head as you go on. But, to begin with, and at the opening of each act, look up to that corner. Remember, if you break down----' She held up a forefinger, threatening, admonitory, and left her standing in position. 'You will do now,' she said. 'Besides,' said Armorel, 'no one will look at you. They will all be looking at Archie's actors.' The dramatist, relegated to the humble position of fantoccini-man, would be also in complete shade behind the table. He would not be seen, whatever emotion of anxiety he should feel. And for dexterity of manipulation with his puppets he could vie even with the firm of Codlin and Short. The noise of cups and saucers in the dining-room proclaimed the arrival of guests. The first to come was Roland Lee, still a little shy, as Alexander Selkirk might have been, or Philip Quarles, or Mr. Penrose, on his return to civilised society. He looked about the room. Mrs. Elstree--looking resigned--and Armorel, standing by the fire, and the two performers. Nobody else. And, in a place of honour, his unfinished picture.