Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/368

 said, at their door: "You must get a good night's rest, now. Don't worry. Don't think of it any more to-night. Promise me, will you?"

He promised her. They tip-toed upstairs to their rooms, careful not to awaken the household. They exchanged a whispered good-night in the hall. He lit his lamp, locked his door, and sat down on the side of his bed, exhausted, all his bravado gone from him, confronting doggedly the renewal of a struggle in which he had been beaten down to defeat after defeat.

  " should have waited," Kidder said irritably. "You should have waited till you had him outside. This sort of thing hurts me a whole lot with the managers, you understand. They've been raking me on the 'phone for it this morning, and I don't like it. I can't afford to send up supers that scrap behind the scenes. You ought 've known better."

"I did it without thinking."

"You oughtn't to do things without thinking. The stage 's no place for anybody that does things without thinking. And it's no place for a girl that can't take care of herself without starting a row like that. This sort of thing makes a lot of trouble for me. They jump on me. They take it out of me. I don't like it."

It was evident that he did not like it. It was evident also that he intended to make Don suffer for the 