the door.

"You do not come of traitors," he repeated, and then Truda was alone
again with the child. But she did not go to it at once, to make sure
of its company. She stood where the Jew had left her, deep in
thought. And the manner of her thinking was not one of care; for the
first time she seemed to taste a sense of freedom.

Of the wrath and bewilderment of her manager there is no need to
speak; a long experience of famous actresses and singers had not
exhausted that expert's capacity for despair. His pessimism gained
some color that evening, when Truda had to face a house that was
plainly willing to be unsympathetic; applause came doubtfully and in
patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master
by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was
still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through
the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of
what was fine and what was mean in drama; and he chuckled and wagged
his head in the wings as minute by minute the spell of Truda's genius
strengthened, till there came that tenseness of silence in the great
theatre which few actors live to know, and Truda, vibrant, taut-
nerved, and superb, plucked at men's hearts as if they had been harp-
strings. It was not till the curtain was down that the spell broke,
and then crash upon crash roared the tumultuous applause of the
audience.

It was Vaucher who rushed forward, as Truda came from the stage, to
kiss her hand extravagantly.

"Ah! Madame!" he cried, looking up to her with his shrewd face