During the fortnight of rehearsals Eliphalet saw a great deal of Mornice, and they became inseparable friends. She told him her name was really Alice May, but she couldn’t endure Alice, so had achieved Mornice from the deeps of her imagination. She had elected the riper month of June instead of May because it sounded jollier after Mornice. Of her people she scarcely ever spoke. Once, in the course of conversation, she chanced to remark: “Oh yes, he did a vamoose—like mother.” “What is a ‘vamoose’?” he asked. “When you skip off and leave everything to look after itself.” “And that is what happened with you?” “Umps! I’ve been on my own since I wore pigtails.” Eliphalet was silent, thinking of the risks to which this child must have been exposed in her struggle for a living. Intuitively she read his thoughts, and said: “I can look after myself, though. Don’t you worry!” “I am quite confident of that,” he replied. Then, after a slight hesitancy, “But aren’t you a shade unwise to encourage the admiration of all these young men? That Mr. Kenneth Luke, for instance?” “Oh, Ken’s all right. He went to Oxford College, so he ought to know how to behave.” Eliphalet smiled and shook his head dubiously. It seemed to him that her reasoning was not quite conclusive. To tell the truth, Master Kenneth had been a little too importunate of late, and Mornice had been considering the advisability of “choking him off.” However, since her one scene had to be played with him, she had thought it better to keep on friendly terms. Eliphalet Cardomay was more than pleased with the notices the press gave him after the first night. “A rendering full of the best traditions of Shakespeare,” said one. “Mr. Cardomay’s beautiful voice was heard to advantage,” said another. It was gratifying to hear his “beautiful voice” spoken of as though the whole world knew of its existence. He began to regain some of the confidence lost after his last London appearance. He fell to wondering what they would have said had he appeared as Hamlet instead of the Ghost, and concluded, erroneously, the papers would have been equally flattering. He had never played Hamlet, and the idea of doing so on some future tour possessed him. Little Mornice June should be given the part of Ophelia, and would certainly outshine the neuralgic young lady in her rendering. All she needed was guidance. Eliphalet had quite made up his mind to engage Mornice on a long contract, not only for her talent, but because he could not endure the thought of losing sight of her. Somehow she filled an empty space in his heart that long had craved for a tenant. It is good for a man to have some interests in life outside his work, and he had none.