FROM THE LIFE
the management he hurried to Jane Shore's hotel, in the hope of persuading her to give up the scene.
She had expected him. She was out taking the air in a rolling-chair. She remained out till after dark; and he did not find her till he caught her at her dinner, that evening, alone in a far corner of the dining-room, away from the music.
She rose, as she saw him coming, and she greeted him rather excitedly. "I'm so glad you came," she said in a low voice, clinging to his hand. "I've had such a fright."
"What is it?" he demanded, instantly protective. "What's happened?"
"It's all right now," she said. "A man's been following me." And she moved her eyes to indicate an adjoining table where a lonely diner sat reading his newspaper—or pretending to—and smoking a cigar.
Unfortunately for the decorum of the dining-room, as the star looked at him he lowered the paper and spied over the top of it at Jane Shore with an air of watching her from ambush. All the actor's rage at the stage director instantly focused on this peeping Tom. And his rage was reinforced by policy; he wished to do something to put Jane Shore under grateful obligation to him. He crossed at once to the table and struck down the paper, with an oath. In doing so he uncovered the proportions of a man whom he would never have chal-
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