In eyes accustomed to the London she had conquered, the Hepplestalls dwindled while Mary Arden, star, looked very big. There was veritable conspiracy to augment her sense of self-importance and even the newspapers, as the war degenerated into routine, gave of their restricted space to say, repeatedly, that Mary Arden was a “person.” To such an one, her ambition seemed no foolishness, but it wasn’t to be done just yet--nor by practicing such crude economies as those of her first cheese-paring tour. Dress mattered to her now; it belonged with her position like other sumptuosities inseparable from a position which was itself a symbol of extravagance. She rode the whirlwind of the war, a goddess of the Leave Front, dressing daintily as men would have her dress, but if there was lavishness at all it was for professional purposes only. It was lavishness corrected by prudence, lavishness calculated to maintain a position which was to lead her to a house in Staithley Edge. She was a careful spendthrift, and she was careful, too, in other ways. The dancing and the dining, the being seen with the right man at the right places--these were not so much the by-products of success as its buttresses; and to be expert in musical comedy acting implies expertness in the technique of being a gay companion. She exercised fastidious selectiveness, but, having chosen, gave her company at costly meals to young officers who returned to France swaggering in soul, mentioning aloud with infinite casualness that they had lunched with Mary Arden. It was tremendously the thing to do: one might be a lieutenant in France but one had carried a baton in London: and one didn’t, even when the sense of triumph led one to the mood of after-dinner boasting, hint that there was anything but her company at meals or at a dance to be had from Mary Arden. The Hepplestalls were going to find no chink in her immaculate armor when she queened it over them from her great house on the hill, but to suggest that mere pride was the motive of her continence is to do her an injustice. Socially as well as theatrically, then, she had her vogue and nothing seemed to threaten it; yet Mr. Rossiter had the strange caprice to be not wholly satisfied with Mary Arden. As a captain of the light entertainment industry, he was doing exceedingly well out of the war; he had a high opinion of the Colonial soldiery; the young British officer was hardly behind the Colonial private in his eagerness to occupy Mr. Rossiter’s stalls, and at times when leave was suspended the civilian population filled the breach in its very natural desire for an antidote to anxiety. Surely he was captious to be finding fault anywhere, last of all with Mary Arden? But Hubert Rossiter did not hold his position by taking short views or by seeing only the obvious, and he sent for Mr. Chown to discuss with him the shortcomings of his client, Miss Arden. “Sit down, Lexley,” he said. “Have you read that script I sent you?”