“I congratulate you, Phillips,” he said.  “You and Norma have become famous overnight.”

The open resentment in his tone angered the playwright and caused him to wonder if their long-deferred clash was destined to occur this morning.  He knew himself to be overwrought, and he imagined Francis to be in no better frame of mind; nevertheless, he answered, pacifically: 

“If that is so we owe it to your art.”

“Not at all.  I see now what I failed to detect in reading and rehearsing the piece, and what you neglected to tell me, namely, that this is a woman’s play.  There’s nothing in it for me.  There’s nothing in my part.”

“Oh, come now!  The part is tremendous; you merely haven’t got the most out of it as yet.”

Francis drew himself up and eyed the speaker coldly.  “You’re quoting the newspapers.  Pray be more original.  You know, of course, how I stand with these penny-a-liners; they never have liked me, but as for the part—­” He shrugged.  “I can’t get any more out of it than there is in it.”

“Doubtless that was my fault at rehearsals.  I’ve called this one so we can fix up the weak spot in the third act.”

“Well!  We’re on time.  Where are the others?” Francis cast an inquiring glance about.

“I’ll only rehearse you and Mrs. Francis.”

“Indeed!” The former speaker opened his mouth for a cutting rejoinder, but changed his mind and stalked away into the shadowy depths of the wings.

“Please make allowances for him,” Norma begged, approaching Phillips in order that her words might not be overheard.  “I’ve never seen him so broken up over anything.  He is always unstrung after an opening, but he is—­terrible, this morning.”

There was trouble, timidity, and another indefinable expression in the woman’s eyes as they followed the vanishing figure of her husband; faint lines appeared at the corners of her mouth, lines which had no place in the face of a happily married woman.  She was trembling, moreover, as if she had but recently played some big, emotional role, and Phillips felt the old aching pity for her tugging at his heart.  He wondered if those stories about Francis could be true.

“It has been a great strain on all of us,” he told her.  “But you?  How do you feel after all this?” He indicated the pile of morning papers, and at sight of them her eyes suddenly filled with that same wonder and gladness he had noticed when she first arrived.

“Oh-h!  I—­I’m breathless.  Something clutches me—­here.”  She laid her hand upon her bosom.  “It’s so new I can’t express it yet, except—­well, all of my dreams came true in a night.  Some fairy waved her wand and, lo! poor ugly little me—­” She laughed, although it was more like a sob.  “I had no idea my part was so immense.  Had you?”

“I had.  I wrote it that way.  My dreams, also, came true.”

“But why?” A faint flush stole into her cheeks.  “There are so many women who could have played the part better than I. You had courage to risk your piece in my hands, Mr. Phillips.”