deferred to his mother and sisters.

Shortly before the time he had fixed for his return he received from
Mrs. Alsager a telegram consisting of the words: "Loder wishes see
you--putting Nona instant rehearsal." He spent the few hours before
his departure in kissing his mother and sisters, who knew enough
about Mrs. Alsager to judge it lucky this respectable married lady
was not there--a relief, however, accompanied with speculative
glances at London and the morrow. Loder, as our young man was aware,
meant the new "Renaissance," but though he reached home in the
evening it was not to this convenient modern theatre that Wayworth
first proceeded. He spent a late hour with Mrs. Alsager, an hour
that throbbed with calculation. She told him that Mr. Loder was
charming, he had simply taken up the play in its turn; he had hopes
of it, moreover, that on the part of a professional pessimist might
almost be qualified as ecstatic. It had been cast, with a margin for
objections, and Violet Grey was to do the heroine. She had been
capable, while he was away, of a good piece of work at that foggy old
playhouse the "Legitimate;" the piece was a clumsy rechauffe, but she
at least had been fresh. Wayworth remembered Violet Grey--hadn't he,
for two years, on a fond policy of "looking out," kept dipping into
the London theatres to pick up prospective interpreters? He had not
picked up many as yet, and this young lady at all events had never
wriggled in his net. She was pretty and she was odd, but he had
never prefigured her as Nona Vincent, nor indeed found himself
attracted by what he already felt sufficiently launched in the
profession to speak of as her artistic personality. Mrs. Alsager was
different--she declared that she had been struck not a little by some
of her tones. The girl was interesting in the thing at the
"Legitimate," and Mr. Loder, who had his eye on her, described her as