And so the rehearsal proceeded laboriously, Sherrington directing it autocratically, ordering certain scenes to be played more rapidly and seeing that others were taken more slowly, so that the spectators might have time to understand the situation. Now and then either Carpenter or Brackett made a suggestion or a criticism, but both yielded to Sherrington, if he was insistent. The stage-manager kept the whole company of actors up to their work, and imposed on them his understanding of that work, much as the conductor of an orchestra leads his musicians at the performance of a symphony. When the whole act had been rehearsed, and the final scene was repeated three or four times until it ran like well-oiled clockwork, the stage was cleared so that the scenery of the third act might be set. Sherrington accompanied Miss Marvin through the door behind the proscenium box into the dark auditorium. "You will play that scene very well," he said, "but you've got to have confidence." "It is a beautiful part, isn't it?" she responded, with enthusiasm. "I never had a part I could enjoy playing so much." Carpenter was about to leave the stage to tell Mary what a delight it was to him to hear her speak the words he had written, when his collaborator tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned Harry Brackett whispered in his ear: "Look out for the Stellar Attraction. I'm afraid she has just dropped on Marvin's part. If she once suspects that the little girl may get that scene away from her, she can make herself mightily disagreeable all round. I guess we had better go up and tell her she is a greater actress than Charlotte Cushman." Carpenter laughingly answered: "Take care she doesn't drop on you! It would be worse if she thought you were guying her." "There's no danger of that," Harry Brackett returned. "That Stellar Attraction of ours is a boa-constrictor for flattery--there isn't anything she won't swallow." The two dramatic authors found Miss Daisy Fostelle standing in the wings and discussing with Dresser the personal peculiarities of another member of the dramatic profession. As Carpenter and Brackett came up the actress was saying: "Why, she had the cheek actually to tell me I was more amusing off the stage than on--the cat! But I got even with her. I told her I was sorry I couldn't return the compliment, for she was even less amusing on the stage than off!" The two dramatists joined in the laugh, and then Harry Brackett began. "Is it your hated rival you are having fun with?" he asked. "Well, if she comes to see you in this play to-morrow they'll have to put a waterproof carpet into the private box, for she will weep bitter tears of despair while she's watching you in this second act of ours." Miss Daisy Fostelle snapped her big black eyes at him and smiled with pleasure. "Yes," she admitted. "I don't believe she will really enjoy that scene--and yet she'll have to give me a hand at the end of the act."