IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND
JOAN MISSES HER CUE

Hughie spent the next few months chiefly in wondering.

He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable enough—but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property, or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton, or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?

Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably—

(a) Joan.

(b) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all going to end.

(c) More Joan still; together with a growing desire to go off again to the ends of the earth and lose himself.

But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated ass of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.

Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.

He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble, who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.

"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in the Parish Hall. In aid of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."

"Joey's latest, I suppose?"

"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant Hildegard, in an attitude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"

Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,—

"But I did it all at the Rectory, mummy."

"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.

"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.

"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.

"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs. Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.

"They're spendin' lashings of money on them. Won't make a farthing profit, I don't suppose; but the show should be all right. They're getting a 'pro.' down to stage-manage 'em."

"My word, they are going it! Hallo, Joey!"

Miss Gaymer's entrance brought theatrical conversation up to fever heat; and for the rest of the meal, and indeed for the next few days, Hughie lived and breathed in a world composed of rickety scenery, refractory pulleys, and hot size, inhabited by people who were always talking, usually cross, and most intermittent in their feeding-times.

One afternoon Joan took him down to the Hall, ostensibly as a companion, in reality to shift some large flats of scenery, too wide for feminine arms to span.

Captain Leroy had already offered himself in that capacity, but his services had been brutally declined, on the ground that the scenery was not concave.

"The programmes are being printed to-day. We are going to have the tableaux in the first half," Joan rattled on, as they walked through the plantations. "Well-known pictures, you know. Some of them are perfectly lovely. I am in three," she added, rather naÏvely.

Hughie asked for details.

"Well, the first one is to be The Mirror of Venus—a lot of girls looking into a pool."

"Are you in that?"

"Not much! That is for all the riff-raff who have crowded in without being invited—the Mellishes, and the Crumfords, and the Joblings. (You know the lot!) There's another tableau for their men: such horrors, my dear! But that disposes of them for Part One: they don't have to appear again until the waxworks. Then there's a perfectly sweet one—The Gambler's Wife."

"Who is she to be?"

"Sylvia Tarrant. She sits under a tree in an old garden, looking sad," gabbled Joan without pausing, "while her husband gambles with some other men on the lawn behind. You'll cry! I come after that—Two Strings to her Bow. A girl walking arm-in-arm with two men. She looks quite pleased with herself: the men have both got camelious hump."

"Who are they?"

"It's not quite settled yet. I told them they could fight it out among themselves. I expect it will be Binks and Cherub, though. But they must decide soon, because time is getting on, and Mr. Haliburton says—"

"Who?"

"Mr. Haliburton."

"Haliburton?" said Hughie, stopping short.

"Yes. Didn't you know? He is stage-managing us. He came down this morning."

"Is he staying in the house?" was Hughie's next question.

"No: we couldn't get him in. He's putting up at The Bull, in the village," said Joan. "I wish we could have found room for him," she added, with intention. She knew that most men neither loved Mr. Haliburton nor approved of their girl friends becoming intimate with him; and this alone was quite sufficient to predispose her in that misjudged hero's favour.

In her heart of hearts Miss Gaymer was just a little Éprise with Mr. Haliburton, and, as becomes one who is above such things, just a little ashamed of the fact. She had found something rather compelling in his dark eyes and silky ways, but, being anything but a susceptible young person, rather resented her own weakness. Still, the fact remained. She had seen a good deal of Mr. Haliburton in London—how, she could hardly explain, though possibly Mr. Haliburton could have done so—and had listened, not altogether unmoved, to tales of a patrimony renounced for Art's sake, of an ancestral home barred by a hot-headed but lovable "old pater"; and to various reflections, half-humorous, half-pathetic, on the subject of what might have been if this world were only a juster place.

Joan, who did not know that Mr. Haliburton's ancestral home had been situated over a tobacconist's shop somewhere between the back of Oxford Street and Soho Square, and that his "old pater" had but lately retired from the post of head waiter at a theatrical restaurant in Maiden Lane, in order to devote his undivided attention to the more perfect colouring of an already carnelian proboscis, felt distinctly sorry for her romantic friend. When a young girl begins to feel sorry for a man, the position is full of possibilities; and when heavy-handed and purblind authority steps in and forbids the banns, so to speak, the possibilities become probabilities, and, in extreme cases, certainties.

Joan glanced obliquely at Hughie. That impassive young man was advancing with measured strides, frowning ferociously. She continued, not altogether displeased:—

"The next tableau is Flora Macdonald's Farewell—very Scotch. A man in a kilt stands in the centre—"

She babbled on, but Hughie's attention wandered.

Haliburton again! He did not like the idea. Consequently it was not altogether surprising if, when Joan paused to enquire whether he regarded Queen Elizabeth or a suffragette as the most suitable vehicle for one of Mrs. Jarley's most cherished "wheezes," Hughie should have replied:—

"Joan, how did that chap come here? Was he engaged by you, or did he offer himself?"

"He offered himself—very kindly!" said Joan stiffly.

"I suppose he is being paid?"

"Yes, of course—a guinea or two. It's his profession," said Joan impatiently. "Do you object?"

The occasion called for considerable tact, and poor heavy-handed Hughie sighed in anticipation. Joan heard him.

"What is the trouble?" she asked, more amused than angry. "Out with it, old Conscientiousness?"

"Joey," said Hughie, "I don't like the idea of your taking up with that chap."

On the whole, it could not have been put worse.

"It seems to me," said Miss Gaymer scornfully, "that it's not women who are spiteful, but men. I wonder why every male I know is so down on poor Mr. Haliburton. Silly children like Binks and Cherub I can understand, but you, Hughie—you ought to be above that sort of thing. What's the matter with the man, that you all abuse him so? Tell me!"

Hughie's reply to this tirade was lame and unconvincing. The modern maiden is so amazingly worldly-wise on various matters on the subject of which she can have had no other informant than her own intuitions, that she is apt to scout the suggestion that there are certain phases of life of which happily she as yet knows nothing; and any attempt to hint the same to her is scornfully greeted as a piece of masculine superiority. Consequently Joey thought she knew all about Mr. Haliburton; wherein she was manifestly wrong, but not altogether to be blamed; for when your knowledge of human nature, so far as it goes, is well-nigh perfect, it is difficult for you to believe that it does not go all the way.

It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. All Hughie did was to reiterate his opinion of Mr. Haliburton without being able (or willing) to furnish any fresh facts in support of it; and the only apparent result was to prejudice Joan rather more violently in Haliburton's favour than before, and to make Hughie feel like a backbiter and a busybody. It was a relief when Joan abruptly changed the conversation, and said:—

"Hughie, have you seen anything of Lance lately?"

No, Hughie had not. "Why?"

"I'm bothered about him," said Joan, descending from her high horse and slipping into what may be called her confidential mood. "He used to write to me pretty regularly, even after he married that freak, and we were always fond of one another, even though we quarrelled sometimes. But he seems to have dropped out of things altogether lately. Do you know what he is doing?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," said Hughie.

"Could you find out for me?"

"Of course I will," said Hughie, quite forgetting the present awkwardness of his relations with Lance in the light of the joyous fact that Lance's sister had just asked him to do her a service. "I'll go and look him up. He may be ill, or short of cash. But can't you get news of him from—from—"

He stopped suddenly. He had been about to ask a question which had just struck him as rather ungenerous.

"You mean from Mr. Haliburton?" said Joan, with her usual directness. "I did ask him, but he says he has seen nothing of Lance for quite a long time; so I'm afraid I must bother you, Hughie. I don't like to, because I know you won't want to go out of your way on his account, after—"

"Never mind that!" said Hughie hastily. "I'll go and look him up."

Joan turned to him gratefully.

"You're a good sort, Hughie," she said. "I don't know what I should do without you."

Hughie glowed foolishly. Her words did not mean anything, of course; still, they warmed him for the time being. He never thought of making capital out of Joan's impulsive outbursts of affection. He regarded them as a sort of consolation prize—nothing more. He had never attempted to make love to her since his first rebuff. The memory of that undignified squabble still made him tingle, and in any case it would never have occurred to him to renew the attack. Man-like, he had taken for granted the rather large proposition that a woman invariably means what she says. To pester Joan with further attentions, especially in his exceptional position, savoured to him of meanness.

For all that, the girl and he seemed of late to have adjusted their relations with one another. Joan never played with him now, encouraging him one moment and flouting him the next, as in the case of most of her faithful band. Her attitude was that of a good comrade. She was content to sit silent in his company, which is a sound test of friendship; she brought to him her little troubles, and occasionally ministered to his; and in every way she showed him that she liked and trusted him. A vainer or cleverer man would have taken heart of grace at these signs. Hughie did not. He was Joan's guardian, and as such entitled to her confidence; also her very good friend, and as such entitled to her affection. That was all. It was rotten luck, of course, that she was not sufficiently fond of him to marry him, but then rotten luck is a thing one must be prepared for in this world. He would get accustomed to the situation in time: meanwhile there must be no more castles in the air.

"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."

"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the entertainment. You must come to that. What is your engagement, if it's not indiscreet to inquire?"

"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.

"Dentist?" Joan laughed, or rather crowed, in her characteristically childlike way. "Hughie at the dentist's! It seems so funny," she explained apologetically.

"It will be the reverse of funny," said Hughie severely, "when he gets hold of me. Do you know how long it is since I sat in a dentist's chair? Eight years, no less!"

"You'll catch it!" said Miss Gaymer confidently. "But you simply must not go on that day. I want you at the show. Can't you change the date?"

"The assassin gave me to understand," said Hughie, "that it was a most extraordinary piece of luck for me that he should be able to take me at all; and he rather suggested that if I broke the appointment I need not expect another on this side of the grave. Besides, next Wednesday is about our one off-day from shooting. I also—"

Miss Gaymer fixed a cold and accusing eye on him.

"Confess, miserable shuffler!" she said. "You arranged that date with the dentist on purpose, so as to escape the theatricals."

"Guilty, my lord!" replied the criminal resignedly.

"Well, you are let off with a caution," said Joan graciously, "but you'll have to come, all the same. You will, won't you, Hughie?"

"Will my presence make so much difference?" said Hughie, rather boldly for him. He was inviting a heavy snub, and he knew it.

Joan raised her eyes to his for a moment.

"Yes," she said, rather unexpectedly, "it will."

"Then I'll come," said Hughie, with vigour. "I go to the dentist at ten. I'll get that over, ask Lance to lunch, and come down by the afternoon train. What time does the show begin?"

"Eight."

"The train gets in at seven-fifty. I'll come straight to the Parish Hall—"

"You'll get no dinner," said Joan in warning tones.

"Never mind!" said Hughie heroically. "There's to be a supper afterwards, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"I'll last out, then. By the way, does it matter if I'm not in evening kit?"

"Not a bit, if you don't mind yourself. Of course the front rows will be full of people with their glad rags on," said Joan. "But if you feel shy, come round behind the scenes. Then you'll be able to keep an eye on me—and Mr. Haliburton!" she added, with a provocative little glance.

---

Hughie duly departed to town, promising faithfully to come back for the theatricals, and wondering vaguely why Joan had insisted so strongly on his doing so. Joan felt rather inclined to wonder herself. She was a little perplexed by her own impulses at present. But her mind was occupied by some dim instinct of self-preservation, and she felt somehow distinctly happier when Hughie promised to come.

However, there was little time for introspection. Rehearsals—"with the accent on the hearse," as Mr. Binks remarked during one protracted specimen—were dragging their slow length along to a conclusion; tickets were selling like hot cakes; and presently the great day came.

Amateur theatricals are a weariness to the flesh, but viewed in the right spirit they are by no means destitute of entertainment. The drama's laws, as interpreted by the amateur, differ materially from those observed by the professional branch—the members of which, it must be remembered, have to please to live—in several important particulars; and with these the intending playgoer should at once make himself conversant.

Here is a prÉcis:—

(1) Remember that the performance has been got up entirely for the benefit of the performers, and that you and the rest of the audience have merely been brought in to make the thing worth while.

(2) Abandon all hope of punctuality at the start or reasonability in the length of the intervals. Amateur scene-shifters and musicians do not relish having their "turns" curtailed any more than the more conspicuous members of the cast.

(3) Bear in mind the fact that the play is not the thing, but the players. The most thrilling Third Act is as dross compared with the excitement and suspense of watching to see whether Johnny Blank will really kiss Connie Dash in the proposal scene, or whether the fact (known to at least two-thirds of the audience) that they have not been on speaking terms for the past six months will result in the usual amateur ne plus ultra—a sort of frustrated peck, falling short by about six inches. Again, the joy of hearing the hero falter in a stirring apostrophe to the gallery is enhanced by the knowledge that he is reading it from inside the crown of his hat, and has lost the place: while the realistic and convincing air of deference with which the butler addresses the duchess is the more readily recognized and appreciated by an audience who are well aware that he happens in private life to be that lady's husband.

The entertainment to which we must now draw the reader's unwilling attention was to consist of three parts. First, the Tableaux Vivants—thirty seconds of tableaux to about ten minutes of outer darkness and orchestral selection; then a comedietta; and finally, Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks.

The largest room behind the scenes had been reserved for the lady artistes; a draughty passage, furnished chiefly with flaring candles and soda-water syphons, being apportioned to the gentlemen. The loge des dames was a bare and cheerless apartment, but tables and mirrors had been placed round the walls; and here some fifteen or twenty maidens manoeuvred with freezing politeness or unrestrained elbowings (according to their shade of social standing) for positions favourable to self-contemplation.

Joan and Sylvia Tarrant foregathered in the middle of the floor.

"I think we'd better dress here, dear," said Joan cheerfully, "and leave the nobility and gentry to fight for the dressing-tables. After all," she added complacently, "you and I need the least doing up of any of them."

The tableaux on the whole were a success, though it was some time before the audience were permitted to inspect them. The musical director, a nervous individual with a penchant for applied science, had spent the greatest part of two days in fixing up an electric bell of heroic proportions controlled from the conductor's desk, and ringing into the ear of the gentleman in charge of the lighting arrangements. A carefully type-written document (another by-product of the musician's versatility) apprised this overwrought official that one ring signified "stage-lights up," and two rings "stage-lights down."

Just before the curtain rose for the first tableau the conductor pressed his button once. After an interval of about two seconds, since the stage-lights showed no inclination to go up,—as a matter of fact the controller of illuminants was tenderly nursing a hopelessly perforated eardrum,—the agitated musician, convinced that the bell had not rung, rang it again. Consequently, just as the curtain rose, every single lamp on the stage, from the footlights to the overhead battens, was hastily extinguished. Confusion reigned supreme. The conductor pressed his button frantically and continuously; the electrician lost his head completely, and began to turn off switches which controlled the lights in the dressing-rooms and the hall itself; while the faithful orchestra, suddenly bereft of both light and leadership, endeavoured with heroic but misguided enthusiasm to keep the flag flying by strident improvisations of the most varied and individual character.

The audience, who had come prepared for anything, sat unmoved; but dolorous cries were heard from the dressing-rooms and vestibule. Above all rose the voice of the conductor, calling aloud for the blood of the electrician and refusing to be comforted. The first tableau vivant partook of the nature of an "extra turn," and was not foreshadowed in the programme. It took place in the middle of the stage, and depicted two overheated gentlemen (one carrying a bÂton and the other en dÉshabille) explaining (fortissimo) the purport of a type-written document to a third (who caressed his right ear all the time) by the light of a single wax vesta.

After this gratuitous contribution to the gaiety of the proceedings the official programme came into force, and various attractive and romantic visions were unfolded to the audience. Certainly the tableaux were well mounted. The success of A Gambler's Wife and Two Strings to her Bow was beyond question. Haliburton, too, made a striking appearance in Orchardson's Hard Hit—the famous gambling picture with the countless packs of cards strewn upon the floor—wherein the broken gamester turns with his hand on the door-handle to take a last look at the three men who have mastered him.

There were minor blemishes, of course. The composure of the beauteous band who were discovered—when the conductor had been hounded back to his stool and the bemused electrician replaced by a man of more enduring fibre—contemplating their own charms in The Mirror of Venus was utterly wrecked—yea, transformed into helpless giggles—by a totally unexpected ejaculation of "Good old Gertie!" proceeding from a young man in the front row—evidently a brother—chiefly remarkable for a made-up tie and a red silk handkerchief, and directed apparently (if one may judge by consequences) at a massively-built young woman kneeling third from the end on the prompt side. During another tableau, as Prince Charles stood rigid in the embrace of Flora Macdonald, the audience sat spellbound for thirty breathless seconds, what time the unhappy prince's tartan stockings slipped inch by inch from the neighbourhood of his knees, past the boundary line where artificial brown left off and natural white began, right down to his ankles—a contretemps which, as Mr. D'Arcy remarked to Mrs. Leroy, added a touch of animation to what would otherwise have been a somewhat lifeless representation.

The comedietta was not an unqualified success. It was one of those characteristic products of what may be called the Back-Drawing-Room School, in which complications begin shortly after the rise of the curtain with the delivery and perusal of a certain letter, and are automatically adjusted at the end of about thirty-five minutes by the introduction of another, which explains everything, settles differences, precipitates engagements, and brings the curtain down upon all the characters standing in a row in carefully assorted couples.

This somewhat trite and conventional plot was agreeably varied by the vagaries of the talented gentleman who played the footman responsible for the delivery of the letters. He brought on the second letter first, with the result that the heroine found herself exclaiming: "How foolish I have been! Gerald had been true to me through all! I must go to him at once! We can be married to-morrow!" after the drama had been in progress some three minutes,—a catastrophe only tided over by some perfectly Napoleonic "gagging" by the comic man and an entirely unrehearsed entrance (with obvious assistance from the rear) of the footman, with the right letter.

Fortunately these divergences from the drama's normal course were lost upon the majority of the audience; for the actors, whether from nervousness or frank boredom, were inaudible beyond the first three rows of seats. Even here the feat of following the drift of the dialogue was rendered almost impossible by the persistent and frantic applause of two obvious "deadheads" in the front row,—poor relations of the gentleman who played the footman,—who, since they occupied free seats, evidently considered it their bounden duty to applaud every entrance and exit of their munificent relative, even when he came on with the wrong letter or was elbowed off to fetch the right one. The only member of the company who performed his duties with anything like thoroughness was the prompter, a retired major with lungs of brass. He had evidently decided, with the true instinct of a strong man, that if you want a thing well done you must do it yourself. Consequently his voice re-echoed through the hall in an unceasing monologue which, while it lacked the variety inseparable from the deliverances of a whole company, did much to keep the occupants of the back benches au fait with the intricacies of the plot. The best laugh of the evening, however, was aroused by the temerity of one of the actors, who suddenly interrupted the prompter to remark mildly but distinctly: "All right, old man, I know this bit!"

Then came Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. The curtain rose upon the usual group of historical and topical characters, seated round the stage in a semicircle, most of them twitching with incipient hysteria, and all resolutely avoiding the eye of the audience. Presently Mrs. Jarley (Binks), accompanied by Master Jarley (Cherub, in a sailor suit and white socks), made her appearance, and plunged into a slightly laboured monologue, what time her offspring walked round the stage, and, by dint of dusting, oiling, and other operations, stimulated any of the figures which could possibly have been mistaken for waxworks into a fitting display of life and activity.

One "Mrs. Jarley" is very like another, and the audience, who were beginning to suffer from a slight attack of theatrical indigestion, were a little slow in responding to Binks's hoary "wheezes" and unfathomable topical allusions. It was not until a bench at the back of the stage, occupied by Oliver Cromwell, General Booth, Dorando, and a Suffragette, suddenly toppled over backwards, and discharged its tenants, with four alarming thuds, into the chasm which yawned between the back of the staging and the wall, that the entertainment could be said to have received a proper fillip. After the first sensation of surprise and resentment at finding themselves reposing upon the backs of their necks in the dust, the four gentlemen affected (who, it is to be feared, had been priming themselves for this, their first appearance on any stage, in the customary manner) accepted the situation with heroic resignation. Remembering that they were waxworks, and for that if for no other reason incapable of getting up, they continued in their present posture, invisible to the naked eye except for their legs, which stuck straight up into the air. The flagging audience, imagining that the entire disaster was part of the performance, applauded uproariously, and Mrs. Jarley seized the opportunity to deliver a pithy extempore lecture upon character as read from the soles of the feet.

The performance concluded with a song and chorus, specially composed for the occasion, and sung by Mrs. Jarley and her exhibits in spasmodic antistrophe. Mrs. Jarley began,—

Here, in attempting to suit the action to the word, the singer tripped heavily over her own train, and was only saved from complete bouleversement by the miraculously animated and suddenly outstretched arm of Henry the Eighth, who was sitting close behind. Binks continued, quite undisturbed,—

"Now then, waxworks! All together! Give them a lead, Sousa!"

Mr. Sousa (second from the end, o. p. side) obediently began to agitate his bÂton, partially scalping Sunny Jim in the process, and the waxworks sang out, fortissimo, with a distinct but unevenly distributed accelerando toward the end,—

The tune was good, and the chorus went with a swing. But now a difficulty arose. The second verse should have been sung by one of the late occupants of the back bench—Dorando, to be precise; and Mrs. Jarley, realizing the circumstance, was on the point of beginning it herself, when a muffled voice, proceeding apparently from the infernal regions, struck into the opening lines. Dorando, faint yet pursuing, was evidently determined to fulfil his contract, even if he had to do it on his head. For various reasons (chiefly dust and incipient apoplexy), his articulation was not all that could be desired, and the verse, which told of the ingenious device of one Tommy Sparkes, who, faced by the prospect of corporal punishment,

whereupon that resourceful lady

was lost upon the audience. But every one took up the chorus with a will, and the third verse entered upon its career under the happiest auspices.

On this occasion the lines were distributed among the figures themselves.

"Now Mrs. Bumble-Doodle gave a ball"—

began Queen Elizabeth;

"But twenty-seven men all wired to say"—

continued Peter Pan;

"That they very much regretted, after all"—

carolled Sunny Jim;

"To find they simply couldn't get away!"—

bellowed a voice (Oliver Cromwell's) from under the platform.

"Said Mrs. Bumble-Doodle, in despair"—

resumed Master Jarley, after a yell of laughter had subsided;

"The ball will be a failure—not a doubt of it!"

announced a Pierrette, with finality.

"The girls won't find a single partner there"—

wailed a waxwork in a kilt (possibly Rob Roy or Harry Lauder)—

There was a break. The piano paused expectantly, and all the waxworks turned their heads (most unprofessionally) to see what had happened to Cherry Ripe, whose turn it was to sing the next verse. Apparently that lady had permitted her attention to wander, for she was scrutinising the audience, to the neglect of her cue. The sudden silence—or possibly the attentions of Master Jarley, who bustled up and assiduously oiled her mouth and ears—seemed to recall her errant wits.

"Sorry!" she remarked calmly, and sang in a clear voice,—

"Oh, what a mess! How are we to get out of it?"

"She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!"

declaimed that lady triumphantly,

"Now, then, all together!"

Mrs. Jarley, waxworks, and audience swung into the final chorus. Even the four inverted Casabiancas at the back assisted by swinging their legs.

But Cherry Ripe was not singing. She was saying to herself,—

"Not in the hall, and not behind the scenes! I wonder where he can have got to! He may have missed his train, of course; but then he could have wired, hours ago. Well, Hughie, mon ami, if that's the way you treat invitations—"

But the curtain had fallen, and all the waxworks were scuffling off their high chairs and trooping to the dressing-rooms. Cherry Ripe, following their example, put an arm round Pierrette, and said:—

"Come along, Sylvia! Home, supper, and a dance! That's the programme now."

On reaching Manors, Joan enquired of Mr. Goble,—

"Is Mr. Hughie back, John?"

"'Deed, no, mem."

"Any telegram, or anything?" asked Joan carelessly.

"Naething whatever! He'll no be back till the morn, I doot," said Mr. Goble.

Two hours later, when supper was over and the dancing at its height, Mr. Haliburton approached Joan.

"Our dance, I think, Cherry Ripe?" he said.

Cherry Ripe concurred.

"Will you come and sit in the conservatory?" continued Haliburton. "I want to say something particular to you."

Joan regarded him covertly for a moment.

"All right!" she said.

---