“Mr. Stark told me that, too,” said the girl quietly, “but I prefer to take them with me. Help me with my coat, Simmons.” A few minutes later she passed through the stage-door. A small and handsome little car was drawn up opposite the door. It was closed and empty. She passed through the little crowd that had gathered to see her depart, stepped inside, placed the jewel-case on the floor at her feet and started the machine. The door-man saw it glide around the corner and went back to his tiny office. Tab also saw the car depart. He grinned at himself for his whimsical and freakish act. If anybody had told him that he would wait at a stage-door for the pleasure of catching a glimpse of a popular actress, he would have been rude. Yet, here he was, a furtive and abashed man, so ashamed of his weakness that he must look upon her from the darkest corner of the street! “Well, well,” said Tab, with a sigh. “We live and we learn.” His flat was in Doughty Street, and stopping only to telephone the result of his interview, he made his way home. As he came into the sitting-room a man some two years his junior looked up over the top of the arm-chair in which he was huddled. “Well?” he asked eagerly. Tab went to a large tobacco jar and filled his polished briar before he spoke. “Is it true?” asked Rex Lander, impatiently. “What a mysterious brute you are!” “Rex, you’re related to the Canards of Duckville,” said the other, puffing solemnly. “You’re a spreader of false tidings and a creator of alarm and despondency amongst the stage-door lizards--whose ancient fraternity I have this night joined, thanks to you.” Rex relaxed his strained body into a more easy and even less graceful posture. “Then she isn’t going to be married?” he said, with a sigh. “You meant well,” said Tab, flopping into a chair, “and I know of no worse thing that you can say about a man than that he ‘meant well!’ But it isn’t true. She’s not going to be married. Where did you get hold of this story, Baby?” “I heard it,” said the other vaguely. He was a boyish looking young man with a pink and white complexion. His face was so round and cherubic that the appellation of ‘baby’ had good excuse, for he was plump of person and lazy of habit. They had been school fellows and when Rex had come to town at the command of his one relative, his uncle, the sour Mr. Jesse Trasmere, to take up a torturous training as an architect, these two had gravitated together and now shared Tab’s small flat. “What do you think of her?” Tab thought before replying. “She’s certainly handicapped with good looks,” he said cautiously. At another time he would have added a word of disparagement or would have spoken jokingly of Rex Lander’s intense interest in the lady, but now, for some reason, he treated the other’s enquiry with more seriousness than was his wont.