"And Miss Hawtry is here also," came in a very beautifully modulated voice from left stage, as the tardy star came down center, and stood directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose immediately and said good-morning; Mr. Rooney kept his seat and looked Miss Hawtry through and through with a cold reproof. "Five minutes late," he said with an edge in the words that cut. "I really beg your pardon, and it shall not happen--" the star was beginning to say in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge of the assault, as Mr. Vandeford had hoped it would, when Mr. Rooney cut it off with a curt command to pale Fido. "Give out the Hawtry part." Miss Hawtry accepted the little blue booklet handed her by Fido, and also Mr. Vandeford's chair, placed carefully in the center of the stage for her. The first brush between Mr. Rooney and Miss Hawtry had been pulled off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was that no star had ever managed him and that he had successfully staged every play he had undertaken; hence a spectacular salary. Also he felt that his reputation was at stake in the Hawtry duel, and he was determined to back his own method. "Scene first, act first; Betty Carrington is discovered on stage. Go to it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the table, opened a copy of the first act, and sat ready for annotations. "How beautiful the morning is and--" the glowering Miss Blanche Grayson was beginning to read from her cerulean booklet, when an interruption occurred. Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday entered from the stage door. Mr. Vandeford looked at Mr. Rooney, and muttered under his breath: "Angel and author, Bill. Easy!" "Shoot," answered Mr. Rooney, in a mild undertone, though he glared at the company as though in a cold rage. "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Adair, the author of our play. You have all of you met Mr. Farraday. Mr. Rooney, our stage-director, Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday." Mr. Vandeford made the introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled company with great timidity. With special trepidation did she regard Mr. Rooney, who had bobbed his scrubby, black-mopped head at her with no expression at all in his little black eyes, while he refused to see Mr. Farraday's offered hand. "Have seats in the left stage-box," he directed them in the same tone of voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry. "Now, get going there, Betty Carrington, and open again."