For he had seen something he had not expected to see—­a real play, with real magic to it, such magic as all his cunning stage artifice, all the studied artistry of his fearfully and wonderfully salaried stellar attachments somehow missed achieving.  He tried afterwards to explain to Carol Clay, his favorite star, just what the quality of the magic was, but somehow he could not get it into words.  It wasn’t exactly wordable perhaps.  It was something that rendered negligible the occasionally creaking mechanism and crudeness of stage business and rendition; something compounded of dew and sun and wind, such as could only be found in a veritable Forest of Arden; something elusive, exquisite, iridescent; something he had supposed had vanished from the world about the time they put Pan out of business and stopped up the Pipes of Arcady.  It was enchanting, elemental, genuine Elizabethan, had the spirit of Master Skylark himself in it.  Maybe it was the spirit of youth itself, immortal youth, playing immortal youth’s supreme play?  Who knows or can lay finger upon the secret of the magic?  The great stage manager did not and could not.  He only knew that, in spite of himself, he had drunk deep for a moment of true elixir.

But as for Rosalind herself that was another matter.  Max Hempel was entirely capable of analyzing his impressions there and correlating them with the cold hard business on which he had come.  Even if the play had proved a greater bore than he had anticipated, the trip from Broadway to the Academy of Music would still have been materially worth while.  Antoinette Holiday was a genuine find, authentic star stuff.  They hadn’t spoiled her, plastered her over with meaningless mannerisms.  She was virgin material—­untrained, with worlds to learn, of course; but with a spark of the true fire in her—­her mother’s own daughter, which was the most promising thing anybody could say of her.

No wonder Max Hempel had peremptorily demanded to be shown behind the scenes without an instant’s delay.  He was almost in a panic lest some other manager should likewise have gotten wind of this Rosalind and be lurking in the wings even now to pounce upon his own legitimate prey.  He couldn’t quite forget either the tall young man of the afternoon’s encounter, his seatmate up from Springfield.  He wasn’t exactly afraid, however, having seen the girl and watched her live Rosalind.  The child had wings and would want to fly far and free with them, unless he was mightily mistaken in his reading of her.

Tony was still resplendent in her wedding white, and with her arms full of roses, when she obeyed the summons to the stage door on being told that the great manager wished to see her.  She came toward him, flushed, excited, adorably pretty.  She laid down her roses and held out her hand, shy, but perfectly self-possessed.

“‘Well, this is the Forest of Arden,’” she quoted.  “It must be or else I am dreaming.  As long as I can remember I have wanted to meet you, and here you are, right on the edge of the forest.”