“Gawdstreuth, Mr. Gascoigne, I don’t know how it happened. Gawdstreuth, Mr. Gascoigne, I’m sorry. Gawdstreuth.”

“Shut your — face,” suggested the head mechanist, unprintably. “Do you want to go to gaol for manslaughter?”

“Don’t you know the first — rule about working in the flies. Don’t you know—”

Mason went back to the office. One by one the company returned to their dressing-rooms.

“And what,” said the oldest of the three reporters, “is your opinion of our railroads, Mr. Meyer? How do they compare with those in the Old Country?”

Mr. Meyer shifted uncomfortably on his cushion and his hand stole round to his rear.

“I think they’re marvellous,” he said.

Hailey Hambledon knocked on Carolyn’s door.

“Are you ready, Carol? It’s a quarter past.”

“Come in, darling.”

He went into the bedroom she shared with Meyer. It looked exactly like all their other bedrooms on tour. There was the wardrobe trunk, the brilliant drape on the bed, Carolyn’s photos of Meyer, of herself, and of her father, the parson in Bucks. And there, on the dressing-table, was her complexion in its scarlet case. She was putting the final touches to her lovely face and nodded to him in the looking-glass.

“Good morning, Mrs. Meyer,” said Hambledon and kissed her fingers with the same light gesture he had so often used on the stage.

“Good morning, Mr. Hambledon.” They spoke with that unnatural and half-ironical gaiety that actors so often assume when greeting each other outside the theatre.

Carolyn turned back to her mirror.

“I’m getting very set-looking, Hailey. Older and older.”