thrusting the fact upon her attention now.

"That Hobson woman is beginning to make trouble," went on Gerald,
prodding in a despairing sort of way at scrambled eggs. "She ought never
to have had the part, never. She can't handle it. Elsa Doland could play
it a thousand times better. I wrote Elsa in a few lines the other day,
and the Hobson woman went right up in the air. You don't know what a
star is till you've seen one of these promoted clothes-props from the
Follies trying to be one. It took me an hour to talk her round and keep
her from throwing up her part."

"Why not let her throw up her part?"

"For heaven's sake talk sense," said Gerald querulously. "Do you
suppose that man Cracknell would keep the play on if she wasn't in it?
He would close the show in a second, and where would I be then? You
don't seem to realize that this is a big chance for me. I'd look a fool
throwing it away."

"I see," said Sally, shortly. She had never felt so wretched in her
life. Foreign travel, she decided, was a mistake. It might be pleasant
and broadening to the mind, but it seemed to put you so out of touch
with people when you got back. She analysed her sensations, and arrived
at the conclusion that what she was resenting was the fact that Gerald
was trying to get the advantages of two attitudes simultaneously. A man
in trouble may either be the captain of his soul and superior to pity,
or he may be a broken thing for a woman to pet and comfort. Gerald, it
seemed to her, was advertising himself as an object for her
commiseration, and at the same time raising a barrier against it. He
appeared to demand her sympathy while holding himself aloof from it. She