"Gordon, come to our room directly after dinner. I want to talk to you," said Miss Moon. "Not a word to anyone, mind."

She spoke in a low voice, with an air of mystery, stopping Loveland on the stairs, and then passing with a significant look and a finger on her lips, as a door shut sharply somewhere above.

Of course she took it for granted that he would accept the Royal invitation which was a command, and did not need an answer. Equally of course Loveland knew that he would be knocking at the door, at the moment desired, though he was puzzled by the request and the secretive way in which it was made.

It was only a week that day since he had joined the company, but the longest week of his life, save one. Already the time when he had not been a barn-storming country actor seemed distant. He was "old man" or "dear boy," with all the men except Jacobus, and "Gordon" with the actresses. He had heard the life-story of almost everyone among his comrades, male and female; knew why, by evil fate or mere fluke, they had lost splendid and well-deserved chances of gracing Metropolitan theatres; had grown to look upon them all, even Buddha, as fellow beings, and was doing his worried, wearied best with seven new parts committed to memory in as many days.

If Lesley Dearmer were an actress, and it were her company instead of Lillie de Lisle's, he said to himself, how happy he could be in spite of all hardships; for the longing to see Lesley was never absent. He regretted her desperately, and the chance he might have had with her—the chance he had thrown away. He dreamed of her at night, instead of living his troubles over again, and in involved fancies often saw her acting with him on the stage, in the place of Bill's "little gal." Always she seemed near; always she was in his thoughts; but perhaps this was partly because someone had mentioned incidentally that Ashville—where the company was playing now—lay only about thirty miles from Louisville.

Somewhere near Louisville she lived, and if he were Lord Loveland, with money in his pocket—even a little money—instead of being just a strolling actor named Gordon, with two suits of clothes to his back, he would have tried his hardest to find her. He no longer regretted the hopelessness of finding favour in the eyes of American heiresses, because he was homesick for the light in Lesley's sweet eyes, the only woman's eyes that had ever mattered seriously to him—except his mother's. Nothing had happened, really, to make money of less importance to him; rather the other way, yet money did not seem as important as it had, and he told himself that he was well punished for not asking Lesley to marry him. But now he had let her learn to despise him. And being Gordon, the barn-stormer, instead of Lord Loveland, he would have avoided a meeting with the girl if it had come in his way. He could not have endured to be seen by her as he was now, and even should his luck change—as it must before long—with news from home—there would still remain between them as a barrier Lesley's scorn of him which he had taught her to feel, and her knowledge of all his ridiculous adventures. What a contrast to the pictures he had painted for her of his reception in America! With her impish sense of fun, the humorous side of his welcome by New Yorkers must have appealed to her intensely, he was sure, and he did not think that even when he ceased to be P. Gordon, Lesley Dearmer would ever care to think of him seriously again.

She had been very frank that last morning on the Mauretania; and many times since, he had recalled every word she had said to him as they leaned on the rail watching the ship draw into the New York dock. Lesley would feel, as he began to, but even more, that everything which had happened "served him right." He could almost hear her pronouncing sentence, smiling, yet in earnest. How she must have laughed at his fallen pride, and the wildly farcical things such merry humourists as Tony Kidd had doubtless put into the papers! He had become a mere figure of fun for America, and therefore, for Lesley Dearmer, who had never been a respecter of persons; and the fear that the Human Flower's Company might play at Louisville had been hot in his mind, until Ed Binney reassured him. Louisville was not for the "likes of them," and they would never get nearer such an important town than they were now. Soon, they would be out of Kentucky, and in Missouri: indeed, the "date" following Ashville, was in the latter state, and Loveland had been advised that his forthcoming address would be Bonnerstown. Only the day before his meeting with Miss Moon on the stairs he had written to Bill Willing, asking him to send on any mail to Bonnerstown, Missouri; and now the lady's mysterious summons gave him an uneasy moment.

He had supposed that his acting was satisfactory, and had worked hard over the learning and rehearsing of his parts, seldom getting to sleep before five in the morning, then dropping off with a MS. in his hand as well as in his head. But what if Miss Moon meant to break the news that "J. J." thought he could not act well enough, and that he must expect his discharge?

Loveland had little appetite for dinner, though the hotel at Ashville was better than at Modunk, and the cooking was good Southern cooking. Immediately after the meal he went upstairs and knocked at the door of Mr. and Mrs. Jacobus's room, with no feeling of strangeness in doing so, because he had learned, since joining Miss de Lisle's company, that for "pros" bedroom was another word for parlour.

The stage manager and his wife were both there, Jacobus smoking, in sulky silence which he broke only with a grunt by way of greeting for the "juvenile lead." But Miss Moon made up in cordiality for her husband's coldness.

"Mr. Jacobus is cross with me," she announced coquettishly, "about you."

"About me?" Loveland repeated, puzzled and vaguely uncomfortable.

"Yes. There's an idea of mine I want to talk to you about, and he says you'll blab it to the others. But I say you won't if you promise you won't. That's so, isn't it?"

"Of course," answered Loveland.

"And you do promise, don't you—and that you won't say a word to a living soul, if I tell you a thing in strict confidence?"

"I promise," Loveland returned imprudently, impressed with the idea that he was to hear some comment on his own acting.

"There! That's all right, then, I trust you. Yes, I just will, J. J., so there! I guess I have a right to my say in this show, haven't I?"

J. J. answered by a shrug of the shoulders, but it was a shrug of resentful acquiescence, and showed that he acknowledged his wife's supremacy—the eternal supremacy of the Golden Calf.

"Sit down, and make yourself at home," went on Miss Moon, smiling on the handsome young man, who was not much older than her sons. "Full Moon" was her nickname in the company, and Loveland thought, as she cordially indicated a chair by the stove, that her figure merited the sobriquet.

"I know you're a great friend of Lillie's," the lady slily began again, when she and Loveland were seated near the fire, and J. J. had drowned himself in a theatrical paper. "But all the same, you must admit that her acting gets worse every day. She's so awful careless! And she's failed to go down with audiences here. We've done rotten business."

"The house has seemed good every night," said Loveland.

"Ah, it's seemed all right; but it's been half paper. It's mighty discouragin', for me and Mr. Jacobus, I can tell you, after the money I've put into the show, and the work he's put in. The fact is, it's so discouragin' we're thinkin' of makin' a change; breakin' up the company, in a way, and then startin' again, with only the ones we really want in a new crowd. Would you like to join?"

Loveland looked her straight in the face, with almost brutally frank disapproval on his. The extra touches she had given to her hair, and eyelashes, and complexion for his benefit, were all in vain. She might have been a block of painted wood, for any admiration in his eyes.

"You mean, you're going to send Miss de Lisle away?" he asked.

"We're going to send ourselves away from her," Miss Moon corrected him.

"Leaving her in the lurch!" exclaimed Loveland; with that uncompromising truthfulness of his which was a virtue or a vice, according as one had reason to regard it.

The big woman flushed darkly through her powder. "There's no 'lurch' about it!" she defended herself with a new sharpness in her tone. "I don't intend to shell out any more of my good money carting Lillie de Lisle around the country as a star, that's all. I suppose I have a right to do as I choose with my own? You oughtn't to complain. I'm offering you a chance that lots of real actors would grab. You can go with the new company, and have better parts, and better pay, than what you're getting now. But you'll have to choose, right away, between me—between us and Lillie de Lisle. Well, what do you say?"

"I say that I choose Miss de Lisle," said Loveland.

Miss Moon burst out laughing, hysterically.

"There, I told you what you'd get!" ejaculated her husband. But she shook her shoulders angrily, seeming to transfer to him all the resentment Loveland had roused.

"Let things alone, can't you?" she snapped. "Gordon's only guying, ain't you, Gordon? Or anyhow, you don't understand. When I said 'choose between us' there's nothing to choose, for Lillie de Lisle hasn't got a thing to offer you, and we have a lot. We can bust her up and when she's bust, she is bust. Why, she hasn't a dime to bless herself with, I shouldn't think. She ain't the savin' kind, and she won't even have any advertisin' paper to go along with, if she wanted to go along on her own. Her name ain't printed on any of the posters; I took care of that, starting out. The slips with 'Lillie de Lisle' are all separate, joined on to the posters with paste—and as for her litho, she's welcome to that. She looks a fright, bad enough to scare crows. The pictorial paper's ours, every sheet of it, and we can start another show inside two days. All we've got to do, is to wire a Chicago agent for a new star, if I don't choose to do the starring myself, and as many folks as we want. Now, you see how things stand, don't you?"

"I think I do," said Loveland.

"Well, what do you decide?"

"The same that I decided before."

"Oh, you do, do you? Ain't you silly! You won't take a good thing when it's offered you?"

"I won't take the thing you've offered me."

She bounced up from her chair, her large face flaming. "Very well, then, all I've got left to say is, I wish you joy of your choice, and—good afternoon!"

"Good afternoon," said Loveland, rising, and walking towards the door.

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Miss Moon, stopping him as he turned the handle. "See here, if you please. You're no gentleman if you play the sneak, and tell."

"I've given you my word not to do that," Loveland assured her.

"Mind you keep it! I wash my hands of you," cried the angry woman, and thinking that he might as well take this as his cue for exit, Loveland left the room.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," he heard her husband quoting with a vicious laugh, before there had been time to shut the door.

Loveland went up to his own room, more than a little troubled. He had learned to like Lillie de Lisle, not only for Bill's sake, but for her own. She was a sweet, bright little creature, a lady by nature, though not by birth or education; and if she had a chance, might even yet—in spite of bad training—become a charming actress. The Moon woman was jealous of the star's youth and prettiness, of course; and now she meant to play her rival a shameful trick, yet he might not warn the poor girl because of that stupid promise he had given.

It was a new thing for Loveland to trouble himself about the affairs of his acquaintances; but he knew too well now what it was like to be deserted by friends, cold-shouldered by the world, not to have learned how to feel for others. He was genuinely uncomfortable about Lillie, but he could only make up his mind to stand by the deposed star whatever happened to her, and to himself. For the present, he did not see what else he could do, bound as he was to silence. But there was one comfort, he consoled himself: a new company could not be formed in a minute. This was Saturday. They would all go on to Bonnerstown next day, no doubt; perhaps Mrs. Jacobus would reconsider the spiteful decision to which her henpecked husband agreed with evident reluctance. In any case, there were a few days in which to plan. Loveland hoped that he might hear from England in another week; and at worst, salaries were payable on Saturdays. He would be the possessor of ten hard earned dollars that night.

Dinner had been at twelve, because of the matinÉe which would begin at two o'clock. Now it was already after one, and everybody had started for the theatre, except himself, the Jacobuses, and Ed Binney, who was ill with a racking cough, and keeping his room till the last minute.

Loveland went upstairs to see how Ed was feeling, found him ready though coughing hard, and they walked to the Ashville Opera House together.

After all, salaries were not paid that night. J. J. informed the expectant members of the company that business hadn't "run to it." They must wait for their money till next week. Bonnerstown was a bigger place than Ashville, and there was every prospect of better things for the future. Two or three of the actors and actresses wheedled a few dollars out of the manager, to "go on" with; but they were "old fakirs," as they would have said themselves, and knew how to manage such matters. Loveland, however, took the news quietly, as he had begun to take the various blows which fortune successively dealt him.

In these small towns, the hotel breakfast was from seven till eight, or until eight-thirty by favour; and on Sundays, if one were a quarter of an hour later in coming down, nothing actively unpleasant was said aloud, though there might be mumblings and dark looks. On this Sunday morning Loveland availed himself of the last amount of grace, hurrying down at a quarter to nine lest he should be told, grumpily, that breakfast was cleared away.

Ed Binney was in bed, for his room-mate had volunteered to carry something up, but Lillie de Lisle, "Pa and Ma Winter," and Miss St. Clare were still at the table.

"Have the others finished and gone already?" asked Loveland, for the two Eccles were usually the last to appear, unless it were "J. J.," who invariably took his wife's breakfast upstairs before beginning his own.

"No. It's queer, none of them have been down yet," replied Mrs. Winter. "They wrote cards on their doors, saying they weren't to be disturbed or their fires to be made, and didn't want breakfast. The cards are up yet. It's the first time they've ever done such a thing since I knew 'em; and that's two years."

"I do hope they haven't committed suicide," whispered Miss St. Clare, who battened on detective stories.

Loveland did not offer any opinion, but he flushed slightly on hearing the news, and went on eating his lukewarm breakfast, with eyebrows drawn together in an anxious frown. Could there be any connection between this mysterious and unprecedented conduct on the part of the manager, his wife, and his wife's family, and the secret proposal made yesterday to the juvenile lead?

Loveland had told himself then that the threatening storm would not break until the following week at earliest, but now a disquieting idea had jumped into his head. So disquieting was it, that when he had finished his breakfast he paused before the door of the room occupied by the Eccles brothers, and disregarding the card conspicuously pinned on the panel, knocked very hard.

No answer came, and he knocked again, still harder. Then a third time, so violently that no natural sleep could have resisted the clamour.

By this time the landlord, the landlord's son, the landlord's wife and niece, and several commercial travellers were in the passage or on the stairs.

"They're dead drunk, or else they've hooked it," suggested one of the latter.

"Scott! Jacobus ain't paid for his week yet!" exclaimed the landlord, his thin yellow face turning a shade yellower. He rushed to the closed door on the floor below, and pounded furiously with no result.

"The snides! I'm hanged if they ain't gallivanted with my money, and made me the expense of bustin' in my doors and gettin' 'em mended!" wailed the proprietor of the hotel.

Luckily for his feeling and pocket, one of the commercial travellers was an amateur locksmith, and the door, which hid the secret of the Jacobus family, was soon opened. The bed had not been slept in. The room was clear of all Jacobus's belongings; and the landlord reproached himself for not being "fly enough" to suspect treachery earlier. He had actually seen, with his own eyes, Mr. and Mrs. Jacobus carrying bundles to the theatre, when starting for the matinÉe, and again before the evening performance, but had thought nothing of it, because his acquaintance with Jacobus had extended over several years.

"I was a crazy loon to think he was all right," the defrauded man groaned. "And then, business was A 1 the whole week, so I wasn't keepin' my eyes peeled for any larks. I'm big enough, and old enough, and ought to o' known better. But the rest o' ye ain't goin' to take a shine out o' me like that. I keep your hotel luggage till you hand over every red cent of your board, and I wish to goodness the law wasn't too cranky to give me holt o' your theatre trunks, too."

"I can't believe they've really gone and left us like this," pleaded the little Star, wide-eyed and pale, though unnaturally composed. "Let's wait and see, before we think the worst. Somebody'd better run over to the Opera House and find out if their things are there. If they've sneaked them away in the night, why—then I'll have to believe; but I won't before."

"I guess my son's there and half-way back by this time," growled the landlord. "Meanwhile, I'll just have a go at t' other lock."

He had the go, and by the time the opening door had revealed emptiness, bad news had come back from the theatre. The worst had happened. With incredible stealth and cunning, the manager and his family had slipped away in the night, leaving nothing behind them but a stranded, broken, and penniless company.