"Nice!" exclaimed Hepworth pushing a chair forward for her, "Nice! Is that the only word you can find to express your pleasure in the fact that the curtain rose thirty times amid continuous cheers, and New York simply took you to her heart and hugged you?" "Good old New York! She knew her own little Fuschia by the strawberry mark on her left arm, didn't she? I heard Caruso sing for the first time the other afternoon, and when they asked me afterward how I liked it, I said I only knew of one thing more heavenly and that was the sound of a great audience clapping and shouting. There's no music like that." Dinner was announced, and Maud, with a slightly worried expression, began explaining to Fuschia that Perdita had been detained; but as they moved toward the door, Hepworth noticed that Fleming had not stirred from the remote corner he had sought upon entering the room. "Jim, what is the matter?" said Hepworth with some concern; "you haven't interrupted Fuschia once since she came in and you know it's always a neck and neck race between you to see which can talk the faster?" "He's been asleep," said Fuschia, taking her seat at the table. "Poor papa! the gay life, you know!" Fleming eyed her indignantly across the bank of primroses in the center of the board. "The gay life! I've had no sleep since I struck New York, that's true. I've had to keep going, and take these poor little pick-me-ups of cat-naps whenever I can get them; but why? For a week before this great first night, I had to sit up with Fuschia and hold her hand and tell her what an unparalleled success she was going to have and then that night, after all the excitement and anxiety I suffered as her father, and the exhaustion incident upon being first _claqueur_, why she drove me out into the cold, damp, rainy streets with one of your New York blizzards just setting in, to buy her the first morning papers, and since then I've had to celebrate her triumph. I'll tell you what it is, friends, I'm a raveled sleeve of care and no kind sleep to knit me up." "Do you know what has really happened?" said Fuschia, in calm explanation. "Dear papa can't help putting in those Dumas and Poe touches, but come to me for the straight truth. It's really the funniest thing about papa. His luck always comes right along with mine. Now what do you think?" "He's made a million since he came to New York," said Wallace Martin. "Lost the other fellow's million, you mean," said Hepworth with feeling.