"Jim, what is the matter?" said Hepworth with some concern; "you haven't interrupted Fuschia once since she came in and you know it's always a neck and neck race between you to see which can talk the faster?"
"He's been asleep," said Fuschia, taking her seat at the table. "Poor papa! the gay life, you know!"
Fleming eyed her indignantly across the bank of primroses in the center of the board. "The gay life! I've had no sleep since I struck New York, that's true. I've had to keep going, and take these poor little pick-me-ups of cat-naps whenever I can get them; but why? For a week before this great first night, I had to sit up with Fuschia and hold her hand and tell her what an unparalleled success she was going to have and then that night, after all the excitement and anxiety I suffered as her father, and the exhaustion incident upon being first _claqueur_, why she drove me out into the cold, damp, rainy streets with one of your New York blizzards just setting in, to buy her the first morning papers, and since then I've had to celebrate her triumph. I'll tell you what it is, friends, I'm a raveled sleeve of care and no kind sleep to knit me up."
"Do you know what has really happened?" said Fuschia, in calm explanation. "Dear papa can't help putting in those Dumas and Poe touches, but come to me for the straight truth. It's really the funniest thing about papa. His luck always comes right along with mine. Now what do you think?"
"He's made a million since he came to New York," said Wallace Martin.
"Lost the other fellow's million, you mean," said Hepworth with feeling.
"Wrong. It's the most unexpected thing you ever dreamed of," Fuschia's voice was triumphant, "papa's got a social success. Yes," nodding impressively, "just look at him closely and you'll see that he's lost his natural, unconscious man-look. He now has a drawing-room-pet expression and he's wearing his hair differently, and throwing out his chest. Oh, you needn't laugh, Mr. Hepworth, it's true. 'Hyperion curls, the front of Jove himself.' When we were coming on I determined that I would always be very kind to papa. I'd never neglect nor ignore him, no matter how famous I became; but, of course, he'd just be Fuschia Fleming's father. But what are the real facts of the case? Father sits in the seats of the mighty, flattered by great ladies and avoids mention of his humble actress daughter. King Cophetua and the chorus girl!"