The ladies returned to the dressing-room again and again in the coarse of the performance, and when not occupied with the changing of their dresses they amused themselves variously. Sometimes they smoked cigarettes, sometimes sent Collins for brandy and soda, sometimes talked of their friends in front: 'Lord Johnny's 'ere again. See 'im in the prompt box? It's 'is sixtieth night this piece, and there's only been sixty-nine of the run--and sometimes they discussed the audience generally: “Don't know what's a-matter with 'em to-night; ye may work yer eyes out and ye can't get a 'and.” The curtain came down at length, the outdoor costumes were resumed, the call-boy cried “Carriages, please,” the ladies answered “Right ye are, Tommy,” her plump ladyship nodded to Glory, “You'll do middling, my dear, when ye get yer 'and in”; and then nothing was left but the dark stage, the blank house, and the “Good-night, miss,” of the porter at the stage door. So these were favourites of the footlights! And Glory Quayle was dressing and undressing them and preparing them for the stage! Next morning, before rising, Glory tried to think it out. Were they so very beautiful? Glory stretched up in bed to look at herself in the glass, and lay down again with a smile. Were they so much cleverer than other people? It was foolishness to think of it, for they were as empty as a drum. There must be some explanation if a girl could only find it out. The second night at the theatre passed much like the first, except that the ladies were visited between the acts by a group of fellow-artistes from another company, and then the free-and-easy manners of familiar intercourse gave way to a style that was most circumspect and precise, and, after the fashion of great ladies, they talked together of morning calls and leaving cards and five-o'clock tea. There was a scene in the performance in which the three girls sang together, and Glory crept out to the head of the stairs to listen. When she returned to the dressing-room her heart was bounding, and her eyes, as she saw them in the glass, seemed to be leaping out of her head. It was ridiculous! To think of all that fame, all that fuss about voices like those, about singing like that, while she--if she could only get a hearing! But the cloud had chased the sunshine from her face in a moment, and she was murmuring again, “O God, do not punish a vain, presumptuous creature!” All the same she felt happy and joyous, and on the third night she was down at the theatre earlier than the other dressers, and was singing to herself as she laid out the costumes, for her heart was beginning to be light. Suddenly she became aware of some one standing at the open door. It was an elderly man, with a bald head and an owlish face. He was the stage manager; his name was Sefton. “Go on, my girl,” he said. “If you've got a voice like that, why don't you let somebody hear it?”