No gently sentimental reason caused Hahn & Lohman to house these hundreds of costumes, these tons of scenery, these forests of furniture.  Neither had Josie Fifer been hired to walk wistfully among them like a spinster wandering in a dead rose garden.  No, they were stored for a much thriftier reason.  They were stored, if you must know, for possible future use.  H. & L. were too clever not to use a last year’s costume for a this year’s road show.  They knew what a coat of enamel would do for a bedroom set.  It was Josie Fifer’s duty not only to tabulate and care for these relics, but to refurbish them when necessary.  The sewing was done by a little corps of assistants under Josie’s direction.

But all this came with the years.  When Josie Fifer, white and weak, first took charge of the H. & L. lares et penates, she told herself it was only for a few months—­a year or two at most.  The end of sixteen years found her still there.

When she came to New York, “Splendour” was just beginning its phenomenal three years’ run.  The city was mad about the play.  People came to see it again and again—­a sure sign of a long run.  The Sarah Haddon second-act costume was photographed, copied (unsuccessfully), talked about, until it became as familiar as a uniform.  That costume had much to do with the play’s success, though Sarah Haddon would never admit it.  “Splendour” was what is known as a period play.  The famous dress was of black velvet, made with a quaint, full-gathered skirt that made Haddon’s slim waist seem fairylike and exquisitely supple.  The black velvet bodice outlined the delicate swell of the bust.  A rope of pearls enhanced the whiteness of her throat.  Her hair, done in old-time scallops about her forehead, was a gleaming marvel of simplicity, and the despair of every woman who tried to copy it.  The part was that of an Italian opera singer.  The play pulsated with romance and love, glamour and tragedy.  Sarah Haddon, in her flowing black velvet robe and her pearls and her pallor, was an exotic, throbbing, exquisite realisation of what every woman in the audience dreamed of being and every man dreamed of loving.

Josie Fifer saw the play for the first time from a balcony seat given her by Sid Hahn.  It left her trembling, red-eyed, shaken.  After that she used to see it, by hook or crook whenever possible.  She used to come in at the stage door and lurk back of the scenes and in the wings when she had no business there.  She invented absurd errands to take her to the theatre where “Splendour” was playing.  Sid Hahn always said that after the big third-act scene he liked to watch the audience swim up the aisle.  Josie, hidden in the back-stage shadows, used to watch, fascinated, breathless.  Then, one night, she indiscreetly was led, by her, absorbed interest, to venture too far into the wings.  It was during the scene where Haddon, hearing a broken-down street singer cracking the golden notes of “Aida” into a thousand mutilated fragments, throws open her window and, leaning far out, pours a shower of Italian and broken English and laughter and silver coin upon her amazed compatriot below.