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146 then for a little air. I am glad to meet you, Mr. Ware. I enjoy acting in your play very much indeed, and I hope it's only the first of many."

"You are very kind," Philip murmured cordially.

Elizabeth glanced around the little group.

"Dear me, I am forgetting my manners," she declared. "I ought to have presented you to Sara Denison first. Sara is really the star of your play, Mr. Ware, although I have the most work to do. She loves her part and has asked about you nearly every day."

Miss Denison, a young lady of the smaller Gibson type, with large eyes and a very constant smile, greeted Philip warmly.

"Do you know," she told him, "that this is the first time I have ever been in a play in which the author hasn't been round setting us to rights most of the time? I can't imagine how you kept away, Mr. Ware."

"Perhaps," observed Philip, "my absence has contributed to your success. I am sure I shouldn't have known what to tell you. You see, I am so absolutely ignorant of the technique."

"I've got to shake hands with you, Mr. Ware," a stout, middle-aged, clean-shaven man, with narrow black eyes and pale cheeks, declared, stepping forward. "These other folk don't count for much by the side of me. I am the manager of the theatre, and I'm thundering glad that your first play has been produced at the 'New York,' sir. There's good stuff in it, and if I am any judge, and I'm supposed to be, there's plenty of better stuff behind. Shake hands, if you please, sir. You know me by name—