And then had followed the appalling scene with Rose Euclid. Rose,
leaving the theatre for lunch, had beheld workmen removing her name
from the electric sign and substituting that of Isabel Joy! She was
a woman and an artist, and it would have been the same had she been a
man and an artist. She would not submit to this inconceivable affront.
She had resigned her _role_. She had ripped her contract to bits and
flung the bits to the breeze. Upon the whole Edward Henry had been
glad. He had sent for Miss Cunningham, who was Rose's understudy,
had given her her instructions, called another rehearsal for the
afternoon, and effected a saving of nearly half Isabel Joy's fantastic
salary. Then he had entered into financial negotiations with four
evening papers and managed to buy, at a price, their contents-bills
for the day. So that all the West End was filled with men and boys
wearing like aprons posters which bore the words: "Isabel Joy to
appear at the Regent to-night." A great and an original stroke!
And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammed
and half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage-manager ordered him
off. The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the
wings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy, who, looking juvenile in
the airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her
cue.
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