admitted to finding his friend's occasional comments on stage
matters of value as coming from the point of view of those who
look on at the game; and even Kripps, the veteran, regarded
him with respect after he had told him that he could turn a
set of purple costumes black by throwing a red light on them.
To the company, after he came to know them, he was gravely
polite, and, to those who knew him if they had overheard,
amusingly commonplace in his conversation. He understood them
better than they did themselves, and made no mistakes. The
women smiled on him, but the men were suspicious and shy of
him until they saw that he was quite as shy of the women; and
then they made him a confidant, and told him all their woes
and troubles, and exhibited all their little jealousies and
ambitions, in the innocent hope that he would repeat what they
said to Lester. They were simple, unconventional, light-
hearted folk, and Van Bibber found them vastly more
entertaining and preferable to the silence of the deserted
club, where the matting was down, and from whence the regular
habitues had departed to the other side or to Newport. He
liked the swing of the light, bright music as it came to him
through the open door of the dressing-room, and the glimpse he
got of the chorus people crowding and pushing for a quick
charge up the iron stairway, and the feverish smell of oxygen
in the air, and the picturesque disorder of Lester's wardrobe,
and the wigs and swords, and the mysterious articles of make-
up, all mixed together on a tray with half-finished cigars and
autograph books and newspaper notices.

And he often wished he was clever enough to be an artist
with the talent to paint the unconsciously graceful groups in