“I'll take the call,” said a quiet voice at his elbow. Neuerman gave the newcomer a look of intense relief. Miss Derring caught her breath, reached for a scene-support to steady herself; murmured: “Why--Peter!” The curtain slid swiftly up. And Peter Ericson Mann, looking really distinguished in his evening clothes, with the big glasses and the heavy black ribbon, very grave, walked deliberately out front, faced the footlights and the indistinct sea of faces, and unsmiling, waited for the uproar that greeted him to die down. He waited--it was almost painful--until the house was still.. Up in the gallery, Sue Wilde, leaning forward, her chin propped on her two small fists, said: “That beats anything I ever....” She ended with a slow smile. The Worm was studying the erect dignified figure down there on the stage. “You've got to hand it to Pete,” said he musingly. “He sensed it in the first act. He saw it was going to be a knock-out.” “And,” said Sue, “he decided, after all, that it was his play. Henry, I'm not sure that he isn't the most irritating man on the earth.” “He's that, all right, Sue, child; but I'm not sure that he isn't a genius.” “I suppose they are like that,” said Sue, thoughtful. “Egotists, of course, looking at everything with a squint--all off balance! Take Pete's own heroes, Cellini, Wagner--” “Hush!” she said, slipping her hand into his, twisting her slim fingers among his--“Listen!” Peter began speaking. His voice was well placed. You could hear every syllable. And he looked straight up at Sue. She noted this, and pressed closer to the man at her side. “This is an unfashionable play (thus Peter). If you like it, I am of course deeply pleased. I did not write it to please you. It is a preachment. For some years I have quietly observed the modern young woman, the more or less self-supporting bachelor girl, the girl who places her independence, her capricious freedom, her 'rights' above all those functions and duties to others on which woman's traditional quality, her finest quality, must rest. She is not interested in marriage, this bachelor girl, because she will surrender no item in her program of self indulgence. She is not interested in motherhood, because that implies self-abnegation. She talks economic independence while profiting by her sex-attraction. She uses men by disturbing them, confusing them; and thus shrewdly makes her own way. She plays with life, producing nothing. She builds no home, she rears no young. She talks glibly the selfish philosophy of Nietzsche, of Artzibasheff. She bases her self-justifying faith on the hideous animalism of Freud. She asserts her right, as she says, to give love, not to sell it in what she terms the property marriage. She speaks casually of 'the free relation' in love. She will not use the phrase 'free love'; but that, of course, is what she means.