The parents protested, but Sylvia would take no denial. "I've kept lots for myself," she assured them. As a matter of fact, she had nearly another £1,000 in the bank. At the end of July Jack came in radiant to say that a piece with an English company was being sent over to New York the following month. There was a small part for which the author required somebody whose personality seemed to recall Sylvia's. Would she read it? Sylvia said she would. "The author was pleased, eh?" Jack asked, enthusiastically, when Sylvia came back from the trial. "I don't really know. Whenever he tried to speak, the manager said, 'One moment, please'; it was like a boxing-match. However, as the important thing seemed to be that I should speak English with a French accent, I was engaged." Sylvia could not help being amused at herself when she found that her first essay with legitimate drama was to be the exact converse of her first essay with the variety stage, dependent, as before, upon a kind of infirmity. Really, the only time she had been able to express herself naturally in public had been when she sang "The Raggle-taggle Gipsies" with the Pink Pierrots, and that had been a failure. However, a tour in the States would give her a new glimpse of life, which at twenty-seven was the important consideration; and perhaps New York, more generous than other capitals, would give her life itself, or one of the only two things in life that mattered, success and love. CHAPTER XIII The play in which Sylvia was to appear in New York was called "A Honeymoon in Europe," and if it might be judged from the first few rehearsals, at which the performers had read their parts like half-witted board-school children, it was thin stuff. Still, it was not fair to pass a final opinion without the two American stars who were awaiting the English company in their native land.