"Am I going to! Finnigan, go and take the lady and Mr. Ramer to any box they like. Ah, Cane! Here's something for you to let yourself out over!" Mr. Cane read Ramer's card and looked radiant. "Well, I'm--!" "I should think you are! Go and spread it. This boy's getting compliments enough to turn him silly." And Crayford clapped Claude almost affectionately on the shoulder. "Now then, Mulworth!" he roared, with a complete change of manner. "When in thunder are we going to have that curtain up?" Claude turned away. He wished to find Charmian, to tell her that Mrs. Shiffney had come and had brought Jonson Ramer with her. But he did not know where she was. As he came off the stage into the wings he met Alston Lake dressed for his part of an officer of Spahis. "I say, Claude, have you heard?" "What?" "Jonson Ramer's here for the rehearsal!" "I know. Can you tell me where Charmian is?" "Haven't an idea! There's the prelude beginning! My! Where are my formamints?" Charmian meanwhile had gone into the theater with a dressmaker, who had come to see the effect of Enid Mardon's costumes which she had "created." Charmian and the dressmaker, a massive and handsome woman, were sitting together in the stalls, discussing Enid Mardon's caprices. "She tore the dress to pieces," said the dressmaker. "She made rags of it, and then pinned it together all wrong, and said to me--to _me_!--that now it began to look like an Ouled Nail girl's costume. I told her if she liked to face Noo York--" "H'sh-sh!" whispered Charmian. "There's the prelude beginning at last. She's not going to--?" "No. Of course she had to come back to my original idea!" And the dressmaker pressed a large handkerchief against her handsome nose, savored the last new perfume, and leaned back in her stall magisterially with a faint smile. It was at this moment that Mrs. Shiffney came into a box at the back of the stalls followed by Jonson Ramer. Without taking off her sable coat she sat down in a corner and looked quickly over the obscure space before her. Immediately she saw Charmian and the dressmaker, who sat within a few yards of her. Claude was not visible. Mrs. Shiffney sat back a little farther in the box, and whispered to Mr. Ramer. "Are you really going to join the Directorate of the Metropolitan?" she said. "I may, when this season's over." "Does Crayford know it?" Mr. Ramer shook his massive and important head. "I'm not certain of it myself," he observed, with a smile. "And if you do join?" "If I decide to join"--he glanced round the enormous empty house. "I think I should buy Crayford out of here." "Would he go?" "I think he might--for a price." "If this new man turns out to be worth while, I suppose you would take him over as one of the--what are they called--one of the assets?" "Ha!" He leaned toward her, and just touched her arm with one of his powerful hands. "You must tell me to-night whether he is going to be worth while." "Won't you know?"