"What--what!" gasped Canby.

"Sh!" Tinker whispered.

"But all I wrote for her to say, when Roderick Hanscom's name
is mentioned, was 'I don't think I like him.' My God!"

"Sh!"

"The Honourable Robert Hanscom!" shouted Packer, in a ringing
voice as a stage-servant, or herald.

"It gives him an entrance, you see," murmured Tinker. "Your
script just let him walk on."

"And all that horrible stuff about his 'wonderful smile!'"
Canby babbled. "Think of his putting that in himself."

"Well, you hadn't done it for him. It is a wonderful smile,
isn't it?"

"My God!"

"Sh!"

Talbot Potter had stepped to the centre of the stage and was
smiling the wonderful smile. "Mildred, and you, my other
friends, good friends," he began, "for I know that you are all
true friends here, and I can trust you with a secret very near
my heart--"