"Quite sure," she said, and though his eyes avoided her own as she spoke those two monosyllables, he could guess from the vibrant tone of her voice just what expression she wore. He agreed to go, then, gladly enough. "And you deserve some fun, anyway," she said happily, "after being penned up this way." "Yes, I'd like to drink in a little of the fulness and color of existence now, for a change. I feel like taking life down in gulps." "Of course you do--then let's begin to-night. Is it a pledge?" "It is. And here's to the fulness of life." "The fulness of life--shake on it, as they say down in my country." From that first-night performance of Cordelia's much-talked-of drama Hartley carried away many mixed feelings. It was when the perfunctory applause that came at the end of the first act had died dishearteningly away that Cordelia had turned to him and confessed, as though acting under some sudden impulse, that the work of making the play from her book had not been performed by her alone. "They insisted on having their own men do it," she explained. "They keep men under salary for just that sort of thing." "But your name's on every spare fence-board in the city," almost gasped Hartley. "Yes, I know; they _insisted_ that I should stand as both author and playwright. I fought against it from the first, but it was useless. They said it would be worth so much more to them that way." She looked at him questioningly. "But it makes me feel like a thief," she sighed. She was hidden out of sight in a dusky corner of the box, and he could not see her face. He looked out at the audience and said nothing. It was at the end of the third act that the first touch of enthusiasm fell on the house. Cordelia, bending forward with newly awakened interest, was listening to the continued applause abstractedly but eagerly, almost hungrily, Hartley thought. It was then that Zillinger, the manager of the house, all but burst into the box, excited, hot, perspiring. "They're calling for you, Miss Vaughan," he cried under his breath, holding the door for her. And listening, she could hear the distant insistent cry of "Author! Author!" Cordelia hesitated a moment. Zillinger was motioning energetically toward the narrow little aperture that led back of the boxes into the stage. They were shaking the curtain to sustain the hand. Cordelia looked at Hartley with a mute question in her eyes. "For God's sake, quick--they're _calling_ you!" cried Zillinger again, mopping his brow. Cordelia noticed Hartley's face--it stood out in the stronger glare from the footlights--and in it at that moment she seemed to read something for which she had been searching. She settled back in her chair. "I can't come," she said simply. Zillinger advanced as though to seize her bodily--he knew the pattering multitudinous voice of that vast stippled dragon and feared its caprices. "They're keepin' it up for _you_--you _got_ to!" he cried in desperation.