The name of Madame Olga Stephano was conspicuously absent from the columns of the Star next morning, but this fact passed unnoticed by one James Martin, who had moved on to the next town, unwept, unhonored and unsung. Gone was the rakish tilt to his derby hat and vanished like the roses of yesterday were the glad, eager look and the jaunty bearing that usually distinguished him as one upon whom fortune was wont to smile. Gloom was in his heart and a sweet melancholy pervaded his thoughts. A letter dated before Jimmy’s fatal first meeting with Miss Slosson, awaited him at the theatre. It brought tidings that did not have a tendency to make life more interesting. It was from Jordan, Madame Stephano’s personal manager on tour with the company, and it summoned him back to Cleveland for the opening performance on Monday night. “There are many matters on which Madame Stephano and myself wish to consult with you,” the letter ran, “among them being the methods of publicity best calculated to further her interests as a star. Our appeal, as you know, is to the intellectual element in the community and you must carefully avoid anything in the nature of cheap or sensational stories or what are vulgarly known as ‘stunts.’ We will go into this at greater length when I see you.” “I’m in for a spring canning,” Jimmy observed to the manager of the theatre when he had finished reading Jordan’s letter. “I wouldn’t mind that so much if I could have got my exit cue in a blaze of glory, but this thing of being bumped off on top of an awful fall-down like that gets under the little old epidermis.” Madame Stephano occasionally varied her Ibsen repertoire with performances of plays by other European dramatists. She had chosen a modern Spanish tragedy for her opening in Cleveland, and the first act was under way when a certain forlorn looking figure slouched wearily into the manager’s office and moodily inquired for Mr. Jordan. The company manager, a thoroughly house-broken slave to the temperamental caprices of the star, came forward. “I’m Martin,” gloomily vouchsafed the visitor. “You are, eh?” responded the manager, acridly, looking him over with indifferently concealed scorn. “We’ve been waiting for you all day.” “Who do you mean by ‘we’?” timidly inquired the chastened press agent. “Why, the madame and myself. We were curious to see what you looked like. You seem fairly intelligent.” Ordinarily Jimmy would have resented the implied sneer in this remark and would have flared up with an indignant rejoinder, but his spirit seemed crushed to earth never to rise again. The surrounding atmosphere was to him pregnant with impending tragedy. He contented himself with a nervous little laugh. “I’ve never been accused of it,” he said foolishly.