The manager decided to make no public announcement of what had happened before the hour came for drawing up the curtain.  A scrappy rehearsal for the benefit of Grace Danver and the two or three other ladies who were affected by the necessary rearrangement went on until the last possible moment, then Mr. Peel presented himself before the drop and made a little speech.  The gallery was fall of mill-hands; in the pit was a sprinkling of people; the circles and boxes presented half a dozen occupants.  ’Sudden domestic calamity . . . enforced absence of the lady who played . . . efficient substitution . . . deep regret, but confidence in the friendly feeling of audience on this last evening.’

They growled, but in the end applauded the actor-manager, who had succeeded in delicately hinting that, after all, the great attraction was still present in his own person.  The play went very much as usual, but those behind the scenes were not allowed to forget that Mr. Peel was in a furious temper:  the ladies noticed with satisfaction that more than once he glared ominously at Miss Danver, who naturally could not aid him to make his ‘points’ as Miss Walcott had accustomed herself to do.  At his final exit, it was observed that he shrugged his shoulders and muttered a few oaths.

Clara had her familiar part; it was a poor one from every point of view, and the imbecility of the words she had to speak affected her to-night with exceptional irritation.  Clara always acted in ill-humour.  She despised her audience for their acceptance of the playwright’s claptrap; she felt that she could do better than any of the actresses entrusted with the more important characters; her imagination was for ever turning to powerful scenes in plays she had studied privately, and despair possessed her at the thought that she would perhaps never have a chance of putting forth her strength.  Tonight her mood was one of sullen carelessness; she did little more than ‘walk through’ her part, feeling a pleasure in thus insulting the house.  One scrap of dialogue she had with Grace, and her eyes answered with a flash of hatred to the arrogance of the other’s regard.  At another point she all but missed her cue, for her thoughts were busy with that letter to which she had replied this afternoon.  Mr. Peel looked at her savagely, and she met his silent rebuke with an air of indifference.  After that the manager appeared to pay peculiar attention to her as often as they were together before the footlights.  It was not the first time that Mr. Peel had allowed her to see that she was an object of interest to him.

There was an after-piece, but Clara was not engaged in it.  When, at the fall of the curtain on the melodrama, she went to the shabby dressing-room which she shared with two companions, a message delivered by the call boy bade her repair as soon as possible to the manager’s office.  What might this mean?  She was startled on the instant, but speedily recovered her self-control; most likely she was to receive a rating—­let it come!  Without unusual hurry, she washed, changed her dress, and obeyed the summons.