“Oh, yes,” smiled her hostess.  “Max Hempel is a brutally frank person.  He never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth.  He has had his eye out for a new ingenue for a long time.  Ingenues do get old—­at least older you know.”

“Not you,” denied Tony.

“Even I, in time.  I grant you not yet.  It takes a degree of age and sophistication to play youth and innocence.  We do it better as a rule at thirty than at twenty.  We are far enough away from it to stand off and observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it.  That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night.  You played like a little girl as Rose should.  You looked like a little girl.  But you couldn’t have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn’t been a little bit grown up.  Do you understand?”

Tony nodded.

“I think so.  You see I am—­a little bit grown up.”

“Don’t grow up any more.  You are adorable as you are.  But to business.  Have you seen my Madge?”

“In the ‘End of the Rainbow?’ Yes, indeed.  I love it.  You like the part too, don’t you?  You play it as if you did.”

“I do.  I like it better than any I have had since Rose.  Did it occur to you that you would like to play Madge yourself?”

Tony blushed ingenuously.

“Well, yes, it did,” she admitted half shyly.  “Of course, I knew I couldn’t play it as you did.  It takes years of experience and a real art like yours to do it like that, but I did think I’d like to try it and see what I could do.”

Miss Clay nodded, well pleased.

“Of course you did.  Why not?  It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is.  You and I are the same types.  Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever since he saw your Rosalind.  But I won’t keep you in suspense.  The long and short of all this preliminary is—­how would you like to be my understudy for Madge?”

“Oh, Miss Clay!” Tony gasped.  “Do you think I could?”

“I know you could, my dear.  I knew it all the time while I was watching you play Rose.  Mr. Hempel has known it even longer.  I went to see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you.  There is.  I told Mr. Hempel so this morning.  He is brewing his contracts now so be prepared.  Will you try it?”

“I’d love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can.  I promised Uncle Phil I would take a year of the school work though.  Will I have to drop that?”

“I think so—­most of it at least.  You would have to be at the rehearsals usually which are in the morning.  You might have to play Madge quite often then.  There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just now.”  Again the shadow, darkened the star’s eyes and a droop came to her mouth.  “It isn’t even so impossible that you would be called upon to play before the real Broadway audience in fact.  Understudies sometimes do you know.”

Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not lifted Tony saw.