In all her miserable imaginings and self-queries the thought that she had been supplanted had no place. Mayer had often spoken to her of his social diversions and no woman had ever figured in them. The paragraphs which still appeared about him touched on no feminine influences. It was her fault; she had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Had she not always wondered that he should have cared for her? On close acquaintance he had found her to be what she was--common, uneducated, impossible. At first she had tried to hide it and then it had come out and he had been repelled. It was not till the afternoon, aimlessly walking to ease her pain, when she saw him again with the blonde-haired girl, that the thought of another woman entered her mind. That night Crowder, after watching the last act from the back of the house, resolved to see her and find out what was wrong. He had been talking to the manager in the foyer and the man's sulky discontent alarmed him. If Pancha didn't buck up she'd lose her job. She was at the dressing table in her red kimono when he came in. The grease was nearly all off and with her front hair drawn back from her forehead, her face had a curiously bare, haggard look. As he entered she glanced up, not smiling, and saw the knowledge of her failure in his eyes. For a moment she looked at him, grave and sad, confessing it. The expression caught at his heart, and he had nothing to say, turning away from her to look for a chair. She picked up the rag and went on wiping her face. "Well," she said in a brisk voice, "I wasn't on the job tonight, was I?" Reassured by her tone, he sat down and faced her. "No, you weren't. It wasn't a good performance, Panchita. I've always told you the truth and I've got to go on doing it." "Go ahead, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I've got my finger on the pulse of this house. I know every rise and fall of its temperature. But I can't always be up in G, can I?" "No, but you can't stay down at zero too long." "It was as bad as that, was it?" "Yes, it was bad." She dropped her hand to the edge of the dressing table and looked at it. Her face, with the hair strained back, the rouge gone, looked withered and yellow. Crowder eyed it anxiously. "Say, Panchita, you're sick." "Sick? Forget it! I never was better in my life." "Then why are you off your work--why do you act as if you didn't care?" "Can't I have a part I hate? Can't I get weary of this old joint with its smoke and its beer? God!" She began to pull the pins out of her hair and fling them on the dresser. "I'm human--I've got my ups and downs--and you keep forgetting it." "That's just what I'm not forgetting." "Stop talking about me--I'm sick of it," she cried, and snatching up the comb began tearing it through her hair. "It's nerves," said Crowder. "Everything shows it. The way you're combing your hair does."