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occasionally,” the young man confessed. “Do you think your husband will put up with me?”
     
    “I wouldn’t count on it,” she warned him. “David is strict with his company.”
     
    Cortez shrugged. “Some of our greatest stars are drunkards! Edwin Booth for one!”
     
    “I hear he would be much more successful if it were not for his drinking. Throwing up in the wings and staggering about onstage is not playing fair with an audience.”
     
    His eyebrows raised. “You’ve heard about him?”
     
    “London is not in another world. We hear a good deal about the theatre here.”
     
    “Of course you would,” Cortez said. “I shall have to stay sober since I’m determined to make you like me.”
     
    She was going to tell him that she already liked him but she decided that might not be safe. So she temporized by telling him, “If trying to impress me will help you, I’m happy to be a partner to it.”
     
    The rehearsals went well. P.T. Barnum was pleased and showed them the posters and handbills he was sending on to Philadelphia. The big man puffed on his cigar as he held them up, reading with satisfaction, “Phineas T. Barnum presents London’s Great Starring team, David and Fanny Cornish in a repertory of plays, supported by a company of leading American players and featuring Mr. Peter Cortez.”
     
    David approved of the advertising, saying, “I’m glad you are giving Cortez billing. He is a good actor.”
     
    “Generous of you to say so,” the great Barnum said. “I may say I had trouble at first getting him to stay on. Now he’s one of your staunch boosters!”
     
    Fanny was delighted by the turn of events. She’d lost a good deal of her melancholy, although there were times when for no reason she strangely found herself depressed. She put it down to her temperament. She was friendly with the good-Iooking Peter Cortez but, remembering the warnings about his womanizing, was careful to keep him at a polite distance.
     
    David was very much the actor-manager again, though he was merely heading a company owned by Barnum. He confided to her that it would not take too long before he could branch out on his own. He was learning more about the way things were done in America every day.
     
    Life at Mrs. Larkins’ Family Hotel went on splendidly. Both David and Fanny agreed that they had enjoyed the best of luck in having been taken there by Adam Burns. It was through meeting Ernest Sherman and his wife, Little Emmie, that they had come to know P.T. Barnum.
     
    Little Emmie was breathless with excitement about their prospects. “I should like to be able to go to Philadelphia and see you,” the fat woman sighed.
     
    Her tall, thin husband placed his arm around his wife’s waist as far as it would go and told her, “Can’t neglect the museum, my dear. We daren’t desert our platforms.”
     
    “I’m sure we’ll get to New York one day,” Fanny said. “Then David and I will supply you both with all the tickets you can use.”
     
    “Jolly good!” Little Emmie said, her chins quivering with pleasure.
     
    Rehearsals continued and Peter Cortez gave no trouble. He was a model member of the company and the only thing he did which worried her was to pay her entirely too much attention. She was embarrassed by this, and she hoped that David wouldn’t notice. Happily, her husband was so engrossed with directing the various plays that he missed the golden-haired actor’s wooing of her.
     
    She made every attempt to discourage him and she noted that the pert Nancy Ray had observed the goings-on and was amused. Several times she found the ingenue watching them with a knowing look. And once she mentioned it.
     
    “Peter is trying hard to win you over,” she told Fanny. “I’ve never seen him so obsessed before!”
     
    Fanny blushed. “Surely you’re joking!”
     
    “I’m not,” Nancy told her. “I’m afraid this time it’s not a matter of mere infatuation. I think he is in love