The lights of the auditorium flame high. The audience rises. It has stepped down from the footlights. It moves in undulating tide toward the wide-flung doors.

Beyond those doors is night, the world of care. The brief hours of living in a house of dreams is over. Forgetfulness gives place to memory. The spirit of the theater lifts its magic touch from tired eyes.

Backstage all is dark and wondering. Have we played our parts as an audience and sensed its heartbeats? Have we smiled its smiles? Teased its vanity? Gained its approval? We of this little play—have we succeeded in our striving to make a critical throng throb to it? Back of the swaying curtain, before which one of asbestos has dropped heavily, all is wild hope, eager prayer, despairing question.

The house of dreams is empty, the soft-armed chairs shrouded as if each held a pale ghost. Is it to be alight or dark? Do we live or die?

To-morrow holds the answer.