All ready, sir!"
The star made no reply but to gaze upon him stonily, a stare
which produced another dreadful silence. Packer tried to smile,
a lamentable sight.
"Something wrong, Mr. Potter?" he finally ventured, desperately.
The answer came in a voice cracking with emotional strain: "I
wonder how many men bear what I bear? I wonder how many men
would pay a stage-manager the salary I pay, and then do all his
work for him!"
"Mr. Potter, if you'll tell me what's the matter," Packer
quavered; "if you'll only tell me--"
"The understudy, idiot! Where is the understudy to read Miss
Lyston's part? You haven't got one! I knew it! I told you last
week to engage an understudy for the women's parts, and you
haven't done it. I knew it, I knew it! God help me, I knew it!"
"But I did, sir. I've got her here."
Packer ran to the back of the stage, shouting loudly: "Miss-oh,
Miss--I forget-your-name! Understudy! Miss--"
"I'm here!"
It was an odd, slender voice that spoke, just behind Talbot
Potter, and he turned to stare at a little figure in black--she
had come so quietly out of the shadows of the scenery into Miss
Lyston's place that no one had noticed.
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