The palms of stage-land stirred, the ferns swayed; between then: tall, vivid greenness came Joan with her tread and grace and watchful eyes of a leopardess, her loose, wild hair decked with flowers: these and her make-up and her thinness disguised her completely from Pierre, but again his heart came to his throat and, when she put her hands up to her mouth and called, his pulses gave a leap. He shut his eyes. He remembered a voice calling him in to supper. "Pi-erre! Pi-erre!" He could sniff the smoke of his cabin fire. He opened his eyes. Of course, she wasn't Joan, this strange, gaunt creature. Besides, his wife could never have done what this woman was doing. Why, Joan couldn't talk like this, she couldn't act to save her soul! She was as simple as a child, and shy, with the unself-conscious shyness of wild things. To be sure, this "actress-lady" was making-believe she was a wild thing, and she was doing it almighty well, but Joan had been the reality, and grave and still, part of his own big, grave, mountain country, not a fierce, man-devouring animal of the tropics. Pierre lived in the play with all but one fragment of his brain, and that remembered Joan. It hurt like a hot coal, but he deliberately ignored the pain of it. He followed the action breathlessly, applauded with contagious fervor, surreptitiously rid himself of tears, and when, in the last scene, the angry, jealous woman sprang upon her tamer, he muttered, "Serve you right, you coyote!" with an oath of the cow-camp that made one of his neighbors jump and throttle a startled laugh. The curtain fell, and while the applause rose and died down and rose again, and the people called for "Jane West! Jane West!" the stage-director, a plump little Jew, came out behind the footlights and held up his hand. There was a gradual silence. "I want to make an interesting announcement," he said; "the author of 'The Leopardess' has hitherto maintained his anonymity, but to-night I have permission to give you his name. He is in the theater to-night. The name is already familiar to you as that of the author of a popular novel, 'The Canyon': Prosper Gael." There was a stir of interest, a general searching of the house, clapping, cries of "Author! Author!" and in a few moments Prosper Gael left his box and appeared beside the director in answer to the calls. He was entirely self-possessed, looked even a little bored, but he was very white. He stood there bowing, a graceful and attractive figure, and he was about to begin a speech when he was interrupted by a renewed calling for "Jane West!" The audience wanted to see the star and the author side by side. Pierre joined in the clamor.