“I would give you pretty much anything else I have,” he replied. “But, you see, that sketch is all I have of Melody—supposing it was hers! You understand?” “You have a good deal of feeling for this Melody?” “Yes,” Brainard admitted, slightly reddening, and added more lightly, “She’s been my benefactress, you see.” The girl raised her gray eyes and looked steadfastly at him. Her face was older, Brainard suddenly perceived, than he had remembered it. Yes, the trip abroad had done much for the wild young girl. “I want _this_!” she insisted. “Then you shall have it!” Brainard exclaimed impulsively, and added with another blush, “It’s about all that I can give you!” “I know it—and that’s why I want it so much!” After that there was a conscious silence between them, until Miss Delacourt rose to leave. She walked slowly to the door, as if loath to go; then she turned and reached out both hands to Brainard. He took them, and they stood facing each other mutely. For the first time in all these years his loyalty to his unknown mistress completely vanished. The ideal of Melody had faded from his mind. XVI If the young dramatist had been disappointed by Miss Delacourt’s apparent lack of interest in his play and in the part of Gertrude on the occasion of that first luncheon, he was quickly reassured by the energetic way in which, beginning with the next day, she threw herself into her work. As soon as she had time “to roll up her sleeves,” as she expressed it, she plunged into the rehearsals, an incarnation of work and enthusiasm. To be sure, she put the author through some uncomfortable hours while she criticized his piece and suggested many important changes with her usual frankness and point. She “combed it out,” as she said, line by line, and convinced him, against his will, that he should cut freely and sharpen his dialogue all through. Moreover, she set him right on several subtle points in the heroine’s psychology. “She knows what she’s about, too,” Farson reported to Brainard. “I don’t see how she’s done it, but in her flip way she’s absorbed a lot in Europe. She knows what all of them are doing. She was quoting Brieux, Barrie, and Shaw at me last night all in one gulp. I must rewrite that third curtain to suit her ladyship.” “You must remember that you are dealing with a star,” Brainard observed dryly. “Louisiana may be new to the firmament, but she knows instinctively what belongs to her starship.” In much the same manner the new leading lady took hold of the other players, and “shook ’em all by the neck and woke ’em up.” There were but three weeks left, and she wore the company almost to the point of revolt by the long rehearsals she demanded. When they grumbled, she read them a characteristic lecture.