She nodded, timid eyes avoiding his. "Am I forgiven?" "I--I--if you'll forgive me--" she faltered. "Then that's all right!" he cried heartily. "I'm glad," he added with unquestionable sincerity--"and sorry I was such a brute. I ought to have understood what a strain you'd been under. Shall we say no more about it?" She nodded again: "Please...." "Good!" He offered his hand frankly, subjected hers to a firm, cool pressure, and moved back to his study door. "Good night." She whispered her response, and ran upstairs to her room, almost beside herself with delight. It was all right! Best of all, the advances had come from him; he it was who had sued for pardon where the fault was hers--clear proof that he thought enough of her to wish to retain her friendship! With a glad and comforted heart she settled down to attack anew the vexatious problem of her rôle in "The Jade God." But for all her worry and good will, the next morning's rehearsal of her scenes passed off in the same terrible silence as had marked Monday's. And in the same afternoon the storm broke. After plodding through her first scene, Joan was about to go off when Wilbrow called her. "Miss Thursday," he said quietly, "one of three things has got to happen--_now_: either you'll follow my instructions, or you'll quit, or I will. I've told you what I want so many times that I'm tired repeating myself. Now we're going to go over that scene again and again, if it takes all afternoon to get what I'm after. _But_, before we start, I will ask you to bear one thing in mind: this isn't an ingénue part; there's no excuse for acting it like a petulant school-girl. Even pretty stenographers are business-like in real life--sometimes--and we're trying to secure some semblance of real life in this production. In other words, I want you to forget Billie Burke and try to act like a human being who's a little sore on her job and her employer, but not sore enough to chuck it just yet. Now, if you please--begin right at the beginning." For an instant Joan stood hesitant, on the verge of refusing. There seemed to be no satisfying this man: he either didn't or wouldn't understand; she tried desperately to please him--and her sole reward was to be held up to the derision of the entire company! It was intolerable! And of a sudden she hated Wilbrow with every atom of her being. But ... if she were to talk back or refuse to go on, Matthias would be forfeited from her life. She choked down her chagrin, resisted the temptation to wither Wilbrow with a glare, and sulkily resumed her place in the chair beside another chair that was politely presumed to be her typewriter desk.