"Yeh? What do you want?"

"The black velvet dress! The black velvet dress! It isn't there."

"Oh, yeh. That's all right. Haddon, she's got a bug about that dress,
and she says she wants to take it to London with her, to use on the
opening night. She says if she wears a new one that first night, the
play'll be a failure. Some temperament, that girl, since she's got to be
a star!"

Josie stood clutching the railing of the stairway. Her disappointment
was so bitter that she could not weep. She felt cheated, outraged. She
was frightened at the intensity of her own sensations. "She might have
let me have it," she said aloud in the dim half light of the hallway.
"She's got everything else in the world. She might have let me have
that."

Then she went back into the big, bright sewing room. "Splendour" ran
three years in London.

During those three years she saw Sid Hahn only three or four times. He
spent much of his time abroad. Whenever opportunity presented itself she
would say: "Is 'Splendour' still playing in London?"

"Still playing."

The last time Hahn, intuitive as always, had eyed her curiously. "You
seem to be interested in that play."

"Oh, well," Josie had replied with assumed carelessness, "it being in