Part 11 (1/2)
”Oh,” she said slowly. ”What's the idea? Girl?”
He shook his head.
”Rest,” he enlightened. ”I'm tired.”
The smile came again to her lips.
”Oh, very well,” she said. ”Get out your bag. I'll help you pack it.”
Maxwell went in search of gla.s.ses and bottles.
A shaded lamp on the table left the corners of the book-lined walls in shadow. In the open fireplace a bank of coals glowed redly. The young woman took her place before it on the Spanish-leather cus.h.i.+ons of a divan, drawing her feet under her and nestling snugly back with her hands clasped behind her head. Her lips were parted in a smile and her eyes, fixed on the coals, were deep with reflection. The face became again the face of a young girl, bearing no trace of the experience which had made up ten years of war with Broadway. To me she paid not the slighted attention. Shortly he returned and handed us gla.s.ses. She raised hers, smiling.
”To you,” she said--”the author!”
They clinked rims.
”To you,” he gravely responded,--”the star!”
After that neither of them spoke, until the girl broke the silence with a laugh.
”Some day, Bobby” she a.s.serted, ”you must tell me the story you haven't dramatized--the story of your life.”
”Why do you think it would prove interesting?”
She regarded him for a time with close scrutiny.
”Well, I don't quite get you, Bobby. You are rather a riddle in a way.
Sir Galahad on Broadway--doesn't that strike you as a funny combination?”
”Rather paradoxical,” he admitted, ”the environment might fit Don Juan better. But why Sir Galahad on Broadway?”
”That's what they all call you. You are notoriously unattainable. The only man in this game who hasn't had an affair with any ash-trash.”
”With any what?” he questioned, puzzled.
”Ash-trash; actress,” she enlightened. ”The t.i.tle is a little conceit of my own--poor but original. You know perfectly well that Stella Marcine simply threw herself at your head during the rehearsals. And she told me that you never even asked her out to supper.”
”Why should I?”
She smiled.
”Everybody else does. Most men marry her, at one time or another.”
”Oh.”
”Of course,” she went on thoughtfully after a pause, ”it's very charming to remain nave after years of this life, unless, as stage gossip says, it's merely a pose.”
”It's not a pose,” replied the man quietly.