“Isn’t it luck, Norman?” she exclaimed gleefully. “I’m to have a chance at _Lucille_!” Alan Mortimer had scarcely opened his lips since leaving the restaurant. Now, with a very lowering look, he swung his tall figure forward, confronting Norman Crane. “I don’t think I remember you,” he remarked, with an insulting inflection. “Not in the cast, are you?” Norman, flushing scarlet, started to retort angrily, but Dukane stopped him with a calm hand upon his arm. “All right, all right, my boy,” he said evenly. “You’re in the cast, all right; but—come, come! We are rehearsing a play to-day, and not discussing personalities.” In some occult fashion he contrived to convey his meaning to young Crane. It was not the smallest of Dukane’s undoubted and unique talents; he knew how to appeal directly and forcibly to a human consciousness without putting the thing into words. Crane, who was extraordinarily sensitive, understood instantly that the manager wished to excuse Mortimer on the grounds of his condition, and that he put it up to the younger man to drop the issue. Wherefore, Crane nodded quietly and stepped back without a word. It is proverbial that red hair goes with a peppery disposition. Norman Crane’s short, crisply waving locks were not precisely red, and his temper was not too savage, but there was a generous touch of fire in both. His hair was a ruddy auburn, and there was in his personality a warmth and glow which could be genial or fierce, according to provocation or occasion. He was a lovable lad, young even for his twenty-three years, with a clean ardor about him that was very attractive, especially to older and more sophisticated persons. Norman Crane was in all ways a fine fellow, as fine for a man as Sybil Merivale was for a woman. They were the same age, buoyant, clear-eyed young people, touched both alike with the spark of pure passion and the distinction of honest bravery. Dukane was too truly artistic not to appreciate sentiment; in his business he had both to appraise and exploit it. And as he saw the two standing together he experienced a distinct sensation of pleasure. They were so obviously made for each other, and were both such splendid specimens of youth, spirit, and wholesome charm. He determined mentally to cast them opposite each other some day, for they made a delightful picture. Not yet; but in a few years—— The managerial calculations came to an abrupt end as he chanced to catch sight of Alan Mortimer’s face. Intense emotion is not generally to be despised by a manager when he beholds it mirrored in an actor’s face, but this passion was a bit too naked and brutal, and it was decidedly out of place at a rehearsal. The man could be charming when he liked, but to-day the strings of his self-restraint were unkeyed. His face had become loose in line; his eyes smoldered beneath lowered lids. Dukane saw clearly revealed in that look what he had already begun to suspect—a sudden, fierce passion for Sybil Merivale.