“I sang one day after a missionary sermon in the Presbyterian Church.” She interrupted herself with a short laugh. “But I guess you’re not thinking of writing my biography, are you?” And it was Dan’s voice that urged her. “Say, do go on. I was there that day with my father, and you sang simply out of sight.” “Yes,” she accepted, “out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever knew. I went away the next day.” She lifted her glass of champagne to her lips. “Here’s one thing I oughtn’t to do,” she said, “but I’m going to just the same. I’m going to do everything I want this evening. Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once.” She drained her glass and her friends drank with her. “I like this soup awfully. What is it?”—just touching it with her spoon. “Why,” Ruggles hastened to tell her, “it ain’t a _party_ soup, it’s Scotch broth. But somehow it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but I let myself go on the soup, it’s my favorite.” She did not eat it, however, although she said it was splendid and that she was crazy about it. “Did you come East then?” Dan returned to what she had been saying. “Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over the place.” She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was easy to be seen that she did not want to talk about her past and yet that it fascinated her. “Just think of it!” he exclaimed. “I never heard a word about you until I heard you sing the other night.” The actress laughed and told him that he had made up for lost time, and that he was a regular “sitter” now at the Gaiety. Ruggles said, “He took me every night to see you dance until I balked, Miss Lane.” “Still, it’s a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, don’t you think so? I like it better than any part I ever had. I am interested about it for the sake of the man who wrote it, too. It’s his first opera; he’s an invalid and has a wife and five kids to look after.” And Ruggles replied, “Oh, gracious! I feel better than ever, having gone ten times, although I wasn’t _very_ sore about it before! Ain’t you going to eat anything?” She only picked at her food, drinking what they poured in her glass, and every time she spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness crossed her face, an expression of good fellowship which Ruggles noted with interest. “I wish you could have seen this same author to-day at the rehearsal of the play,” Letty Lane went on. “He’s too ill to walk and they had to carry him in a chair. We all went round to his apartments after the theater. He lives in three rooms with his whole family and he’s had so many debts and so much trouble and such a poor contract that he hasn’t made much out of _Mandalay_, but I guess he will out of this new piece. He hugged and kissed me until I thought he would break my neck.”