“What do you think those writer-guys in the front row are going to say about Louisiana Delacourt to-morrow morning? They’ll hand me the merry laugh, that’s all. I’ll be a deader in the profession after this. Anyway, I’ll have to make up another name.” “Your name wasn’t on the program, you know,” Brainard suggested soothingly. Louisiana merely cast him a withering glance. “Of course, our company isn’t what it should be yet,” he admitted. “We’ll try to give you a better chance—” “You’ll have to do some mighty smart trying,” the girl sneered fiercely. “You highbrows think all you’ve got to do is to open a theater and print ‘Ideals’ in big letters on the program, and the public will run to your show. Folks have been going to the theater some before you undertook to uplift it!” “Do you think they do good work at the other theaters?” “They ain’t all they might be, perhaps, but they’re so much more in the game than you are, Mr. Head-in-the-Clouds, that you can’t see ’em at all, at all! And to start off with Shakespeare, of course!” She sniffed outrageously. “_Lear_ was a mistake.” “I should say it was!” she agreed with infinite sarcasm. “Why don’t you look around and see what the others are doing—what the horrid trust is putting on? They know their business, anyway.” “Oh, come—you are a little hard on us!” “I mean it. . . . Now, if you don’t mind stepping along, I’m going to shake off this meal sack and hike home to bed. Good-by to high art for me, thank you!” Brainard started for the door on this broad hint, but paused with his hand on the knob. “Miss Delacourt,” he said, facing the angry girl, “I came here to-night to say to you what I sincerely believe—that you have in you the making of a fine actress. I gather from what you have said about our undertaking that my opinion means nothing to you. But let me assure you that I didn’t see your mistakes to-night as much as the spirit and the talent—the very great talent, if I am not mistaken.” “Very kind of you, I am sure,” the girl snapped. “I don’t wish to persuade you to stay with us against your inclination. In our present shape, we can’t give you what you need.” “I should think not!” “One of my purposes, however, in this enterprise was to discover just such talent as I think you have, and develop it. Perhaps, if I can’t help you in one way to develop your talent, I can in another.” Miss Delacourt deigned to pause in her toilette to stare at Brainard. “I’m sure you have the real thing in you, even after this one unfortunate performance. I can’t tell whether the vein will hold deep, whether you have the character to develop it thoroughly, or will be content with the superficial success you might easily achieve in one of the commercial theaters. But I want to help you to do better than that—to give your talent a chance.” “Well?” “You must go where you can study—where you can see good acting also. You must go abroad—to England and France and Germany.”