Though his money was producing my play, I had met him only once; and this, I had been frequently assured by the company, had been the one redeeming feature of an unusually strenuous theatrical experience. "T. B." never attended any but dress rehearsals, leaving everything to his stage directors until the black hours when he arrived to consider the results they had accomplished. It was not an infrequent thing for him on these occasions to disband the company and drop the play; that he should change part of the cast and most of the "business" seemed almost inevitable. For days I had been striving to accustom myself to the thought that during our dress rehearsal "T. B." would be sitting gloomily down in the orchestra, his eyes on the back drop, his chin on his breast, a victim to that profound depression which seized him when one of his new companies was rehearsing one of his new plays. At such times he was said to bear, at the best, a look of utter desolation; at the worst, that of a lost and suffering soul. At long intervals, when Fate perversely chose to give her screw the final turn for an unhappy playwright, "T. B." himself conducted the last rehearsal, and for several months after one of these tragedies theatrical people meeting on Broadway took each other into quiet corners and discussed what had happened in awed whispers and with fearsome glances behind them. It had not occurred to any of us that "T. B." would be moved to conduct _our_ last rehearsal. This was his busiest season, and Elman was his most trusted lieutenant. Now, however, Elman's quiet voice was giving us the details of "T. B.'s" intention, and as she listened Stella Merrick's face, paling slowly under the touch of rouge on the cheeks, took on something of the exaltation of one who dies gloriously for a Cause. She might not survive the experience, it seemed to say, but surely even death under the critical observation of "T. B." would take on some new dignity. If she died in "T. B.'s" presence, "T. B." would see that at least she did it "differently"! "But, Bertie, that's _great_!" she exclaimed. "He must have a lot of faith in the play. He must have heard something. He hadn't any idea of conducting when I spoke to him yesterday." "Oh yes, he had!" Elman's words fell on her enthusiasm as frost falls on a tree in bloom. "He didn't want to rattle you by saying so, that's all. And he isn't doing this work to-night because he's got faith in the play. It's more because he hasn't. He hasn't faith in anything just now. Three of his new plays have gone to the store-house this month, and he's in a beastly humor. You'll have the devil of a time with him." Miss Merrick sprang to her feet and began to pace the study with restless steps. "What are you trying to do?" she threw back at him over her shoulder. "Take what little courage we have left?" Elman shook his dark head.