Part 6 (2/2)
”You are young, and like all young people, you flatter yourself that you will be the exception,” she said. ”Good-bye, my dear. I dare say all my advice will be wasted, for if it is in the blood, if you have the call of the footlights in your soul and the fire of ambition in your heart, nothing can stop you in your career; neither the advice of an old woman nor the experience of others. Good-bye, my dear. Au revoir.”
CHAPTER V
STRICTLY A BUSINESS BARGAIN
Clayton found Martha in a corner of the veranda ten minutes later, in a brown study.
”Here, this will never do,” he began cheerfully. ”Is it as bad as that?”
Martha looked up with an attempt at cheerfulness.
”It is of no consequence,” she said simply. ”You wouldn't understand.”
”Am I so dense as all that?” he protested. ”Any one with half an eye could see that you are in trouble, and I'd like to help if I can be of any a.s.sistance.”
Martha looked up at the lawyer hopefully. ”Mr. Clayton,” she said, ”Mrs.
Kilpatrick says you are from New York. I've never been there. A few moments ago I said I wanted to go on the stage, and you laughed at me.
Now, may I ask you seriously for your advice, and will you give me a serious answer?”
Clayton sat down by her side. ”Fire away,” he commanded.
”In the first place, I have firmly decided to go on the stage,”
explained Martha. ”I have great ambition, I have been told that I read well, and I must make a living somehow. That settled, the only problem is the way to go at it. Will you advise me?”
”But you are not cut out for that sort of life,” protested Clayton.
”You--you should marry--you'll find more real happiness there.”
”Have you done that?” inquired Martha.
”That's different. I'm a man.”
”Oh, yes, and being one, you think we women can't get along without you.”
”No one can live happily without love.”
”If you have success, you don't need love,” insisted Martha.
”My dear child,” Clayton tried to explain, ”the greatest success means nothing if the right person does not share it with you.”
Martha rose to her feet proudly.
”I will risk its meaning nothing if I can only have it.”
”Do you mean that?” inquired Clayton, looking at her.
”Yes.”
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