The curtain was rising as they were ushered to a stage-box. The play, a modern society drama, in its eighth week, playing to capacity at every performance, was featuring the popular matinée idol, Templeton Druid, in the stellar rôle. During the intermission, between the first and second acts, as the girls discussed the play and the star with animated enthusiasm, Mrs. DeLacy exploded a bombshell in their midst when she calmly remarked: “You children seem so fascinated by Mr. Druid—would you like to meet him?” “Do you know him, Geraldine?” The question was chorused eagerly. “I have known him all my life,” was the reply. “We were neighbors in Richmond, raised together as children, attended the same high-school, and graduated from the same class.” “Well, why in the world didn’t you say so before?” Rosebud Greely pouted as though she had been personally injured, as she pulled her skirts higher for more comfort for her crossed legs with their bare knees visible above her rolled-down silk stockings. “Pigging it, I’d call it—wanted him all to yourself, I suppose. And you knew what play we were coming to see, and who was starring in it?” Geraldine DeLacy smiled tolerantly. “Don’t fly off so quickly, dear,” she advised. “I didn’t know myself till just now, for how could I imagine that Thomas Temple, a boy from my home town, whom I haven’t seen in years, was this Templeton Druid, popular Broadway star. I knew he always had a soaring ambition to become an actor, but I could never dream of his going this far in so short a time.” “Isn’t it wonderfully interesting and romantic?” Nell Thurston, her eyes aglow with excitement, wanted to know more. “You asked about our caring to meet him. Can you manage it, Geraldine?” Elinor Benton was all eagerness. “Easily enough,” Geraldine shrugged her handsome shoulders as she replied. “I’ll send back a note asking him to join us at the Waldorf for tea after the matinée. He’ll be there—” There was a worldly meaning in her last words that even her sophisticated charges failed to get. “How positively thrilling!” Rosebud giggled. “Do you know I’ve never talked to a real actor in my life?” With the prospect of meeting the star, interest in the play increased ten-fold. Romantic revelries ran riot through four foolish little heads. Geraldine sat back and smiled cynically. “Young idiots,” she thought contemptuously, as her roving glance settled upon Elinor Benton. With tightly compressed lips and eyes aflame with envy, she stared at the girl. Only for a fleeting instance, however, did she permit her expression to betray her chaotic emotion. She leaned forward in her chair apparently absorbed in the people on the stage. As she had expected, Templeton Druid’s reply to her invitation was a delightfully affable little billet expressing his pleasure at the hope of seeing Mrs. DeLacy and meeting her friends. He promised to arrive at the Waldorf as expeditiously as possible after the matinée.