“Besides what?” demanded Sybil. “If I lose that part, I’ll sue you for a job! Besides what?” Kitty, for all her pretty, impulsive ways, rarely did things without consideration; so it was with quite slow deliberation that she answered Sybil’s question with another: “Would you like to come with Alan Mortimer?” “Mercy!” The girl put down her knife and fork and stared with huge blue eyes. “Do you mean to say that there’s a part open—after rehearsing ten days?” “How do you know how long we’ve been rehearsing?” queried the older woman. Sybil grew delicately pink. “I know a man in the company,” she confessed, laughing shyly. “Norman Crane—oh, he’s only got a little bit of a part; perhaps you haven’t noticed him, even. It’s a big company, isn’t it? But he’s quite keen about your play.” “Norman Crane?” repeated the other thoughtfully. “Why, yes, I know him. A tall, clean-looking fellow with reddish hair and a nice laugh?” “That’s Norman! He isn’t a great actor, but—he’s quite a dear.” Miss Legaye nodded slowly, still regarding her. The notion which had come to her a minute before seemed to her more and more markedly a good notion, a wise notion—nay, even possibly an inspired notion! Mortimer’s leading woman, Grace Templeton, was a brilliant blonde with Isoldelike emotions, and Kitty had loathed and feared her from the first, for the new star swung in an orbit that was somewhat willful and eccentric, to say the very least of it, and his taste in feminine beauty was unprejudiced by a bias toward any special type. For a long time Kitty had yearned to get rid of Miss Templeton. If the thing could possibly be managed, here was a girl of undoubted talent—she had seen her act and knew that she had twice the ability of the average young player—presentable, but not too radiantly pretty, and proper and conventional and all that—not at all the sort of girl who would be likely to have an affair with the star. And then, if she was interested in young Crane, why, it would be altogether perfect! “So you know Norman Crane,” she said. “Then if you did come into the company, that would make it particularly nice for you, wouldn’t it?” “Why, yes,” the girl returned, frankly enough. “We’re quite good friends, though I don’t see much of him these days. We used to play together in stock out West two years ago; we were both most awful duffers at acting.” Kitty Legaye nodded as though fairly well satisfied. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would try to get Sybil a small part in the play, with the chance to understudy Miss Templeton—it was all she could even partially promise until she had conferred with Dukane and Mortimer—when her attention was sharply distracted by the sight of two men who had just entered the room and who were looking about them in choice of a table. She uttered a quick exclamation, as quickly suppressed.