And then, in a mistaken moment, they planned a revival of "Splendour."
Sarah Haddon would again play the part that had become a classic.
Fathers had told their children of it--of her beauty, her golden voice,
the exquisite grace of her, the charm, the tenderness, the pathos. And
they told them of the famous black velvet dress, and how in it she had
moved like a splendid, buoyant bird.

So they revived "Splendour." And men and women brought their sons and
daughters to see. And what they saw was a stout, middle-aged woman in a
too-tight black velvet dress that made her look like a dowager. And when
this woman flopped down on her knees in the big scene at the close of
the last act she had a rather dreadful time of it getting up again.
And the audience, resentful, bewildered, cheated of a precious memory,
laughed. That laugh sealed the career of Sarah Haddon. It is a
fickle thing, this public that wants to be amused; fickle and cruel
and--paradoxically enough--true to its superstitions. The Sarah Haddon
of eighteen years ago was one of these. They would have none of this
fat, puffy, ample-bosomed woman who was trying to blot her picture from
their memory. "Away with her!" cried the critics through the columns of
next morning's paper. And Sarah Haddon's day was done.

"It's because I didn't wear the original black velvet dress!" cried she,
with the unreasoning rage for which she had always been famous. "If I
had worn it, everything would have been different. That dress had a
good-luck charm. Where is it? I want it. I don't care if they do take
off the play. I want it. I want it."

"Why, child," Sid Hahn said soothingly, "that dress has probably fallen
into dust by this time."