Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/69

 artistic abstraction or resent it as supercilious disdain, Margaret O'Neil, one of the character old ladies who had constituted herself a combination of critic and chaperone of these "carry" practices, turned, after a word with Miss Dounay, and said:

"We should like to know who it is that is carrying us about."

"Why, certainly," exclaimed John, all his doubt disappearing in a toothful smile as he swept off his hat. "My name is Hampstead, John Hampstead."

"Miss Dounay, allow me to present Mr. Hampstead," said Miss O'Neil, without the moulting of an eyelash.

Miss Dounay extended her hand cordially for a lofty, English handshake, accompanied by an agreeable smile and a chuckling laugh, understood by John to be in recognition of the oddness of the situation.

After this, things were somewhat different. There was less sense of strain on his part, and he began to realize that there had been some strain upon hers which now was relaxed. Her body was less post-like; and toward the end of rehearsal, when possibly she was a little tired, it lay in his arms quite placidly, relaxing until its curves yielded and conformed to the muscular lines of his own torso.

Yet Miss Dounay never betrayed the slightest self-consciousness at such moments. Whatever the woman as woman might be, she was, as an actress, so absolutely devoted to the creation of the character she was rehearsing, so painstakingly careful to reproduce in every detail of tone and action the true impression of a pure-minded, Christian maiden that Hampstead, with his firm religious backgrounding, unhesitatingly imputed to the woman herself all the virtues of the chaste and incomparable Lygia.

When dress-rehearsal time came at midnight on Sunday, just after the regular performance had been con-