From that time up to the opening of the play, her career was a
succession of brilliant coups in gaining the confidence and love,
not to say the money, of men of all ages and all walks in life. Her
fascination was as undeniable as her insincerity of purpose. She
had never made an honest effort to be an honest woman, although she
imagined herself always persecuted, the victim of circumstances,--and
was always ready to excuse any viciousness of character which led her
into her peculiar difficulties. While acknowledged to be a mistress of
her business--that of acting--from a purely technical point of view,
her lack of sympathy, her abuse of her dramatic temperament in her
private affairs, had been such as to make it impossible for her
sincerely to impress audiences with real emotional power, and,
therefore, despite the influences which she always had at hand, she
remained a mediocre artist.

At the time of the opening of our play, she has played a summer
engagement with a stock company in Denver, which has just ended. She
has met JOHN MADISON, a man of about twenty-seven years of age, whose
position is that of a dramatic critic on one of the local papers.
LAURA MURDOCH, with her usual wisdom, started to fascinate JOHN
MADISON, but has found that, for once in her life, she has met her
match.

JOHN MADISON is good to look at, frank, virile, but a man of broad
experience, and not to be hoodwinked. For the first time LAURA MURDOCH
feels that the shoe is pinching the other foot, and, without any
possible indication of reciprocal affection, she has been slowly
falling desperately, madly, honestly and decently in love with him.
She has for the past two years been the special favourite and mistress
of WILLARD BROCKTON. The understanding is one of pure friendship.