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Through her repertoire she went, changing like a chameleon from the bland grin and strut of Eddie Foy to the crumpled pleading and out-flung hands of Nazimova in “The Doll’s House.” She plunged into Nora’s final scene with her husband:

ssss1... “When your terror was over—not for what threatened me, but for yourself ... then it seemed to me—as though nothing had happened. I was your lark again, your doll just as before—whom you would take twice as much care of in future, because she was so weak and fragile. Torwald—in that moment it burst upon me that I had been living here these eight years with a strange man.... Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself to pieces!”

The greater part of the audience had never heard of the Russian actress, knew less of the Scandinavian author. But the sob in the voice of the frail little girl on the stage, the anguish in her face got them by the throat.

There was a spontaneous burst of applause that held for a moment while Betty bowed, glance straying into the misty auditorium, heart fluttering with a gratification it had not known since the Grand Central spilled her into the bewildering maze that is New York.