“Thus I came to know the people in this play through what happened to them, and I understood what they must be to receive the particular guerdon that you are seeing come to them. Nor has it seemed to me that I caused these events of the play, nor created the people. It is an unending marvel to us who write how wilful our puppets become, how we stand aside and watch them make or mar their lives in spite of us, precisely as do our other friends who are clothed in flesh. I have had help in writing this play for which I shall be grateful all my life. It grew in a quiet room in Cleavedge, and its writing was a never-to-be-forgotten joy; a present joy that abides is mine, though the play is done. Whatever comes to me later, I can never write another first play, nor lose the happiness this one brought to me, crowned to-night by your great kindness to it. “You have shown me that I have not quite failed to share the dream with you. You approve ‛The Guerdon.’ With all my heart I thank you. That is my guerdon. I am a happy man to-night. I am grateful to the men and women who have embodied the people in the play as I knew them, but as you could not know them but for this acting, since outside my brain and that quiet room in Cleavedge these play-people had never ventured. Out of a grateful heart I thank you all.” Anne shrank farther back as she listened to Richard talking here as simply, as quietly as he had talked to her in that quiet room. His allusion to it brought it before her so vividly that the theatre, the audience were blotted out. She was back in that room, the bees humming in the beautiful garden, their hum and the scent of the flowers they were rifling coming in through the windows, open to the light breeze. She knew that Richard was speaking to _her_, telling _her_ not to grieve, to remember that he was sincerely glad to carry with him the memory of the days that had left him only memory. Kit, seeing Anne’s face, came forward to take her chair and give her his place, a little back of his aunt. “Don’t look like that, honey!” he whispered. “People will notice, and hang and quarter me! There’s always someone about who knows too much! I don’t care if Latham did write ‛The Guerdon!’ ‛But notta Carlotta! I gotta Carlotta!’ However you pity him, you can’t marry us both, dear! Latham is happy! That’s true. Look at him!” Richard was acknowledging the applause of his modest speech; his smile was bright, his face shining. Ted Wilberforce was clapping with all his might over little Anne’s head, and little Anne was waving both arms over the rail of the box, leaning out of it dangerously, and shouting shrilly: “You dear, you dear, you dear!” to the delight of everyone within range of her clear, childish voice. Miss Carrington fell back in her chair after her emphatic applause of Richard. She looked at Kit proudly, amusement and satisfaction in her eyes.