"It is nice, isn't it?" she prattled. "It may look a little up-stage for a girl who hasn't got a line to read in the piece, but these days one must get the spot-light, or be a dead one. It reminds me of a little run-in I had with Graddy--he's our stage-director, you know." She paused, awaiting the invitation to proceed, and, having received it, went gaily forward. "I was ten minutes late, one day, for rehearsal, and Graddy came up with that sarcastic manner of his, and said: 'Miss Starr, I don't doubt you are a perfectly nice girl, and all that, but it rather gets my goat to figure out how, on a salary of fifteen dollars a week, you come to rehearsals in a million dollars' worth of clothes, riding in a limousine--_and_ ten minutes late!'" She broke off with the eager little expression of awaiting applause, and, having been satisfied, she added: "I was afraid that wasn't going to get a laugh, after all." She glanced inquiringly at Samson, who had not smiled, and who stood looking puzzled. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. South, from down South," she challenged. "I guess I'm sort of like Mr. Graddy," said the boy, slowly. "I was just wondering how you do do it." He spoke with perfect seriousness, and, after a moment, the girl broke into a prolonged peal of laughter. "Oh, you are delicious!" she exclaimed. "If I could do the _ingénue_ like that, believe me, I'd make some hit." She came over, and, laying a hand on each of the boy's shoulders, kissed him lightly on the cheek. "That's for a droll boy!" she said. "That's the best line I've heard pulled lately." Farbish was smiling in quiet amusement. He tapped the mountaineer on the shoulder. "I've heard George Lescott speak of you," he said, genially. "I've rather a fancy for being among the discoverers of men of talent. We must see more of each other." Samson left the party early, and with a sense of disgust. It was, at the time of his departure, waxing more furious in its merriment. It seemed to him that nowhere among these people was a note of sincerity, and his thoughts went back to the parting at the stile, and the girl whose artlessness and courage were honest.