Thereupon, having disposed of the company, the young woman devoted herself unreservedly to her food, ignoring Brainard’s presence. The next time that the stage manager opened a discussion with Miss Leroy that promised to last for some moments, Brainard turned to the girl. “Pardon my curiosity,” he said, taking the seat behind her, “but I should like to know how you happen to be here at the rehearsal.” “Me? Why, I belong!” she replied, with a funny wrinkling of her small lips. “I’m part of it—this great uplift movement for the American drá-ma!” Brainard winced at the gibe. “Is that what they call us?” “And a lot of other things,” the young woman admitted frankly. “Highbrows and amateurs and boneheads and—” “I don’t know you, and I thought I had met every one in the company.” “I’m not in the front row, you see. I am what they call a nee-o-phyte—a pupil in the Actors’ College, when there is any college.” “Oh, I remember now!” Brainard said, recalling the first and only pupil enrolled. “Your name is—” “Delacourt—Louisiana Delacourt,” the girl rolled out with gusto, as if she enjoyed her name, and hadn’t many opportunities of using it. The slightly Southern accent of the girl set puzzling currents of memory at work in Brainard’s mind. He looked at her more closely, but in the dim light of the auditorium could not make out distinctly the face which was shrouded in one of the inverted “peach-basket” hats of the period. She seemed a slight little body. “Say,” Miss Delacourt remarked confidentially, “I bet I could show that wiggle-tailed Flossie a stunt or two!” “Do you know _Lear_?” “Do I know _Lear_? I was nursed on Shakespeare. My mother knew the plays by heart, and used to recite ’em all over. Mr. Farson says he’ll get me a boy’s part in the last act. Five lines—but you’ll see how I’ll make ’em hum!” Just then Farson came up to them out of the darkness of the auditorium, and nodded to the girl, who presently slipped off. “So you know Miss Delacourt?” Brainard observed. “Of course! Everybody about the place knows Louisiana. Queer little piece, isn’t she? Slangy and fresh, but she knows how to handle herself. . . . It’s pretty rotten!” he remarked cheerfully, glancing at the stage. “Just what Louisiana said.” “I guess she knows!” Brainard and the secretary thereupon went out to lunch, and tried to forget their troubles. VI At last, amid turmoil and excitement, the opening day came. Brainard and Farson had been at the theater since early morning, doing what they could to bring order out of chaos. About lunch time MacNaughton rushed up to them, his face white with excitement. “A telegram from Miss Leroy!” he gasped. “Doctor thinks she’s got appendicitis. She’s got Einsteinitis, all right,—that’s what is the matter with her! We can’t raise an actress in New York who knows Cordelia’s lines, let alone having rehearsed it. We’ll have to postpone the opening!”