Miss Ellsling was inquiring. "It is noble and I feel that I am
unworthy of you."

"No, Mildred, believe me," Potter read from his manuscript, "I
would rather decline the nomination and abandon my career, and
go to live in some quiet spot far from all this, than that you
should know one single moment's unhappiness, for you mean far
more to me than worldly success." He kissed her hand with
reverence, and lifted his head slowly, facing the audience with
rapt gaze; his wonderful smile--that ineffable smile of
abnegation and benignity--just beginning to dawn.

Coming from behind him, and therefore unable to see his face,
Miss Wanda Malone advanced in her character of ingenue, speaking
with an effect of gayety: "Now what are you two good people
conspiring about?"

Potter stamped the floor; there was wrenched from him an
incoherent shriek containing fragments of profane words and
ending distinguishably with: "It's that Missmiss again!"

Packer impelled himself upon Miss Malone, pushing her back. "No,
no, no!" he cried. "Count ten! Count ten before you come down
with that speech. You mustn't interrupt Mr. Potter, Miss--Miss--"

"It was my cue," she said composedly, showing her little
pamphlet of typewritten manuscript. "Wasn't I meant to speak on
the cue?"

Talbot Potter recovered himself sufficiently to utter a cry of