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Phantom Fingers

to her about the mysterious notes that had been received, for fear of throwing her off her game, so to speak, but I could see that it would have done no harm, for there seemed to be no fear of any kind in her.

She chatted with me for awhile, on one of the occasions when she had a short wait in the wings, and I found her very interesting. In fact, I will be quite frank with you and state that I found her more than interesting. I found her absorbing, and I could scarcely take my eyes off her face. I was almost in a daze as she stood near me, and her eyes held mine like a magnet. I could see, easily, the fascination she had for an audience. She spoke her lines easily and naturally, as though she were indeed in a drawing room of her own, and she moved with a freedom and grace such as I have seldom seen equaled either on or off the stage.

The second act, as I have said, went smoothly, until toward the end. At the end there was a love scene between Betty Sargent and the star, Augustin Arnold, an impassioned scene that began with talk and ended with a prolonged embrace, as such scenes do. I was not paying too much attention, for Ike Humbert was standing beside me, and we were engaged in an interesting line of talk, but I knew without looking just about what was going on on the stage.

The audience, I realized subconsciously, was in a deep silence, as is the way of audiences during a con-

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