action was to open at that time, and Marguerite Andrews was to meet
Horace Balderstone on that vessel on the evening of the second day
out, with which incident the interest of Harley's story was to begin.
But Harley had counted without his heroine. The rest of his cast
were safely stowed away on ship-board and ready for action at the
appointed hour, but the heroine MISSED THE STEAMER BY THREE MINUTES,
AND IT WAS ALL HARLEY'S OWN FAULT.



CHAPTER II: A PRELIMINARY TRIAL



"I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield."
- "Merchant of Venice."

The extraordinary failure of Miss Andrews, cast for a star role in
Stuart Harley's tale of Love and Villany, to appear upon the stage
selected by the author for her debut, must be explained. As I have
already stated at the close of the preceding chapter, it was entirely
Harley's own fault. He had studied Miss Andrews too superficially to
grasp thoroughly the more refined subtleties of her nature, and he
found out, at a moment when it was too late to correct his error,
that she was not a woman to be slighted in respect to the
conventionalities of polite life, however trifling to a man of
Harley's stamp these might seem to be. She was a stickler for form;
and when she was summoned to go on board of an ocean steamship there
to take part in a romance for the mere aggrandizement of a young