Philip moved a little uneasily in his place.  Some instinct told him, however, how greatly she desired his silence—­that she wanted to tell her story her own way.

“Then followed three miserable years, during which I saw little of him.  I knew that I had talent, I was always sure of making a living, but I got no further.  It didn’t seem possible to get any further.  Nothing that I could do or say seemed able to procure for me an engagement in New York.  Think of me for a moment now, Philip, as a woman absolutely and entirely devoted to her work.  I loved it.  It absorbed all my thoughts.  It was just the one thing in life I cared anything about.  I simply ached to get at New York, and I couldn’t.  All the time I had to play on tour, and you won’t quite understand this, dear, but there is nothing so wearing in life as for any one with my cravings for recognition there to be always playing on the road.”

She paused for a few minutes.  There was a loud twittering of birds.  A rabbit who had stolen carefully through the undergrowth scurried away.  A car had come through the wood and swept past them, bringing with it some vague sense of disturbance.  It was some little time before she settled down again to her story.

“At the end of those three years,” she went on, “Sylvanus Power had become richer, stronger, more masterful than ever.  I was beginning to lose heart.  He was clever.  He studied my every weakness.  He knew quite well that with me there was only one way, and he laid his schemes with regard to me just in the same fashion as he schemed to be a conqueror of men, to build up those millions.  We were playing near New York and one day he asked me to motor in there and lunch with him.  I accepted.  It was in the springtime, almost on such a day as this.  We motored up in one of his wonderful cars.  We lunched—­I remember how shabby I felt—­at the best restaurant in New York, where I was waited upon like a queen.  Somehow or other, the man had always the knack of making himself felt wherever he went.  He strode the very streets of New York like one of its masters and the people seemed to recognise it.  Afterwards he took me into Broadway, and he ordered the car to stop outside the theatre where I am now playing.  I looked at it, and I remember I gave a little cry of interest.

“‘This is the new theatre that every one is talking about, isn’t it?’ I asked him eagerly.

“‘It is,’ he answered.  ‘Would you like to see inside?’

“Of course, I was half crazy with curiosity.  The doors flew open before him, and he took me everywhere.  You know yourself what a magnificent place it is—­that marvellous stage, the auditorium all in dark green satin, the seats like armchairs, the dressing rooms like boudoirs—­the wonderful spaciousness of it!  It took my breath away.  I had never imagined such splendour.  When we had finished looking over the whole building, I clutched his arm.

“‘I can’t believe that it isn’t some sort of fairy palace!’ I exclaimed.  And to think that no one knows who owns the place or when it is going to be opened!’