of attitude.' Now we older guys just bide our time. We are patient. We wait and make the first feint when something has happened to hurt her feelings, and she wants a sympathetic word or hand clasp. Then, when the travel is hard and the food bad and health isn't exactly robust and there grows and grows a yearning for 'Mamma,' and she's tired and heart hungry, 'little Willie' steps in with his 'hush-abye-baby,' and, presto, she's won."

It was banter, jest, ridicule, guying; it brought forth another peal of laughter from Biber; but, God in heaven it was the truth! The truth!! The truth!!! It was a caricature of the whole story, and sitting there in that bare little dressing room cold, horror stricken, my book clasped tightly to me, I saw in a flood of the light of new knowledge what was meant when they talked of "taking a man too seriously." Yet, with more terrifying poignancy, I realized, too, that while this man had never in word or look suggested to me even an insinuation of improper conduct, he was, nevertheless, willing that others should think I was his property to any lengths. No wonder he had never spoken of the more pertinent side of our love, the deeper, lifelong part of it. I had been satisfied to think it a silent understanding between us, when here I learned the truth. There was to be no deeper side. I was simply this season's plaything to a man old enough to be my father, who was probably still being patient and waiting. Oh, God! it was too horrible.

My saving grace had been then, so far, that I had not fallen in love with him deeply. But oh! I have seen girls since in the same position whom such a revelation would have cost their heart's blood in agony; to whom it would have meant so much that, even if they had heard "him" say it, they would have gone on loving "him" just the same, going to any lengths to keep "him" by their sides. This undoubtedly had been the way poor Stella began, and being of a deeply passionate nature, she knew no bounds. when once her affections were won.

But in me had no passion been kindled, therefore, I could look the situation coldly in the face. That I had permitted this man even to make love to me, now filled me with disgust and repulsion, but not disappointment. I thanked God for it then. I thank Him for it now. If it was, as Billie had said, the lack of "flesh and blood" in me, then may the immortal gods be praised for my iceberg nature at that time. Yet the humiliation in the revelation of this man's true character can never be expressed. If disappointment there was, therein it lay. One by one my idols had been shattered at my feet. I now had no one, not even a friend in the company, for I felt, sitting there, the sound of his voice in my ears, that if he spoke to me again I could gladly kill him.

I managed to get out of the theatre and to the hotel before Mr. Softlee knew it, leaving the wardrobe trunk unpacked. I got my satchel from my room, paid my bill, and in the darkness of the night stole

down to the depot of the town. My personal trunk was in the hands of the property man who collected it on one-night stands from the hotel while we were at the performance. So I must trust to luck to get it sometime later on. My only thought, now, was to get away where I should never see that man again.

Poor fool; as if Steele Softlee was alone in such villainy; as if I wasn't to meet hundreds of the same stripe-but at that time I felt he was the only man on earth capable of such a trick as this to a girl of seventeen.

A train was pulling in at the station when I reached it, and I got on board, not knowing which direction it was going, nor its destination. I sank into a seat and took out my chamois money bag. I did not know whether I had enough to get to New York, but I did not care. I could go somewhere and then telegraph for some money from home.

When the conductor came along, I found that luck was with me. The train I was on was bound for New York, and the fare and sleeping berth considerably inside of the contents of my chamois bag. I sent a telegram from the first station at which we stopped, telling the manager I was no longer a member of the company and asking him to ship my trunk to an address in New York City and then tumbled into my berth, actually glowing with genuine enjoyment that I was free from it all, and blissfully unconscious that I had done the most absurdly unprofessional thing, as far as the management was concerned, it has ever been my lot to hear of since that time.

CHAPTER V.

A LITTLE RETROSPECTION.

A day's journey alone gave me ample time for meditation, and as I went over the scenes, living those few months again, day by day, my resentment and disappointment grew apace. I had entered a profession which was inviting to me as an art and one which gave every promise of granting not only a livelihood, but also of opening new channels of life, with opportunity for travel, for association with artists and that which was artistic, a mind as well as purse-filling employment. I was ambitious and had faith in my capabilities; was perfectly willing to begin at the bottom of the ladder and even to work my way slowly to whatever position for which I might be best fitted by any quality that I might develop. Nevertheless, here I had run away from my first muchsought-after, yearned-for engagement before the season had passed, not because of any setback as to my work or the management's lack of appreciation, or encouragement, but purely from the burning and overwhelming disappointment in the association; the people personally with whom I ate, drank, and lived; for players moving about the country are constantly in one another's society to the exclusion practically of all other intercourse.

Seldom had we met any other person not in some way connected with the theatre, and the limited time given to each city or town, together with the fatigue attendant on constant travel and performances, robbed one of any desire to visit places of interest belonging to localities in which we might be playing. In fact a general closing of the eyes to all that is around us, save the train, hotel, and theatre, is the average attitude of the much traveled Thespian. On this, my first trip, I had been quite severely "guyed" by almost every member of the company for my ejaculations of pleasure at the glorious autumnal tints of the woods of Pennsylvania. Hardly anyone ever looked from the car windows. The men spent the journeys mostly in smokers at cards or with novels, the women sleeping, reading or gossiping, waiting for such of our men as might drop into the seats beside them and also gossip away a few tedious hours. Far from enjoying this opportunity to see our country we spent our time complaining (kicking I learned is the vernacular) about "the early jumps," "the bad hotels" (all hotels seem bad to an actor), "the bum dressing rooms" in the last stand, or the unappreciative people who comprised the audience in such and such town. In fact I can now say, in looking back over twenty years of almost constant travel and association of this sort, it is simply an ugly, yet universal, habit of the traveling actor to find absolutely nothing of interest in a season's tour on the

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