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It was hot: she felt her forehead wet, her clothes seemed heavy and sticky, and her head ached dully. "How'd you like it?" Wallace asked enthusiastically. "I love it, sweetheart!" Wallace, frankly embarrassed for money, took her at once to Mrs. Curley's big boarding-house in East Seventieth Street, where the Cluetts had stayed. Mabel had told Martie that "Grandma Curley" was a "character."

At intervals the Bannisters and the Cluetts did have little after-theatre suppers, but Martie was heroically dieting, Mabel tired and sleepy, and both gentlemen somewhat subject to indigestion. So Martie and Wallace more often went alone, Martie drinking bouillon and nibbling a cracker, and her husband devouring large orders of coffee and scrambled eggs.

In late June the Cluetts pretty faded Mabel, her two enormous babies, her stepson Lloyd, and Jesse, the husband and father all came to Pittsville for a few days' leisure before rehearsals began. Lloyd was a "light juvenile," off as well as on the stage. Jesse played father, judge, guardian, prime minister, and old family doctor in turn.

They had been married perhaps eight weeks when Wallace astonished her by drinking too much. She had always fancied herself too broad-minded to resent this in the usual wifely way, but the fact angered her, and she suffered over the incident for days. It was immediately after the termination of his successful engagement, and he and the Cluetts were celebrating the inauguration of a rest.

Suddenly they found the plural pronoun: we must do that; that doesn't interest us; Pa must not suspect our affair. "The Cluetts are going to be in Pittsville," said Wallace one day. "I want you to meet them. You'll like Mabel; she's got two little kids. She and Jesse have been married only six years. And they'll like you, too; I've told 'em you're my girl!" "Am I?" said Martie huskily.

Sixty bones per week; pretty neat, what? We begin rehearsing in July, open August eighth, and if it's a go, go on indefinitely. The Cluetts and I are in this the rest of the company's gone flooey. Meanwhile, I have three weeks to wait, and I'm staying with my aunt in Pittsville studying like mad." "And what are you doing in Monroe?" Martie said contentedly, as they wandered along.