Packer staggered into the breach. "You interrupted the smile,
Miss--Mi--"

"Miss Malone," she prompted.

"You interrupted the smile, Miss Malone. Mr. Potter gives them
the smile there. You must count ten for it, after your cue. Ten--
slow. Count slow. Mark it on your sides, Miss--ah--Miss. 'Count
ten for smile. Write it down please, Miss--Miss--"

Potter spoke wearily. "Be kind enough to let me know, Packer,
when you and Missmiss can bring yourselves to permit this
rehearsal to continue."

"All ready, sir," said Packer briskly. "All ready now, Mr.
Potter." And upon the star's limply rising, Miss Ellsling, most
tactful of leading women, went back to his cue with a change of
emphasis in her reading that helped to restore him somewhat to
his poise. "It is noble," she repeated, "and I feel that I am
unworthy of you!"

Counting ten slowly proved to be the proper deference to the
smile, and Miss Malone was allowed to come down the stage and
complete, undisturbed, her ingenue request to know what the two
good people were conspiring about. Thereafter the rehearsal went
on in a strange, unreal peace like that of a prairie noon in the
cyclone season.

"Notice that girl?" old Tinker muttered, as Wanda Malone
finished another ingenue question with a light laugh, as