Miss Pyce condescended to accept the invitation to breakfast from the proprietor of the People’s Theater, as she had nothing better to do with her time. Her own manager had wounded her vanity by not appearing at the dock with an automobile. So the three were soon tucked into Brainard’s motor and crossing the ferry. Miss Pyce inquired after the fate of the People’s company in a tone of lofty kindness, until Louisiana kicked her about the ankles, causing her to relapse into a sulky gloom. “The salubrious air of Broadway will do you good, I hope, Cissie,” Louisiana remarked severely. “I’ve stood your nonsense for six days because I had to. Now come to, please! Just because you’ve got a fool play, and a fool manager to waste his money on you, you needn’t try the Duse-Bernhardt-Ellen Terry pose on old friends!” Miss Pyce promptly descended several steps and began to converse about the New York weather, which she said was trying to English nerves. When they arrived at Brainard’s house, they found that Farson had not yet come in from rehearsal. The two women were shown into the little den behind the library, while Brainard glanced over his mail. Five minutes had scarcely elapsed when a shriek came from the inner room, and the door was thrown violently open. Louisiana stood on the threshold, clasping against her breast a little picture framed in a thin gold molding. “Where did you get _this_?” she demanded breathlessly. Brainard looked at her admiringly. As she stood there against the dark shadows of the inner room, the sun from the window falling in a great gold bar across her auburn hair and violet-colored traveling dress—thin, erect, full of the passionate eagerness of youth—he saw Farson’s character created. “Bravo, Gertrude!” he cried. “Tell me, where did you find _this_?” she insisted impatiently. “What have you got there?” he asked, taking the picture from her hands. Her face followed his with curiosity and expectation, her eyes searching him. “Where did you get it?” she repeated. “This water color? I picked it up in Arizona—out there where my mine is located. It’s a long story—_my_ story. I’ll tell it to you some of these days.” “Now! Tell it to me now!” she insisted, with something more than childish impetuosity. But just then Cissie Pyce, patting the marvelous folds of her hair, came from the inner room. “Not now,” Brainard replied, looking meaningly at Miss Pyce. Taking the water color from Louisiana’s reluctant hands, he replaced it above the desk in his private study, where it had always hung since he had moved into this house. Farson came in presently, and in the flurry of his surprise and greetings the subject of the water color was apparently forgotten. Now and again, however, during their lively breakfast, Brainard found Louisiana’s gray eyes resting on him with a peculiar intentness. She did not seem so much excited over the prospect of playing Gertrude in _Her Great Adventure_ as he had expected.