"Yes, with delight"
He did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far
up-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less
for this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home.
In the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score
of times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling.
This was Saturday afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinee
shortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and
followed into the other's apartment.
"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?"
"Yes," Paula forced herself to say. "I wanted to ask you about Quentin
Charter. You were called away--just as you were speaking of him the
other morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very
wonderful. I reviewed the second for _The States_. He thanked me in a
letter which was open to answer."
Selma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. "And so you
two have been writing letters?" she observed. "I'm putting down a bet
that his are rich--if he's interested."
Paula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must
learn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind
held her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have
faltered in the thick cloud of misgivings.
"Yes, there is much in his letters--so much that I can't quite adjust
him to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called
him that--when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter."
"I'll swear this much also," Selma Cross said savagely, "he has found
your letters worth while."
"Is that to the point?"
"Why, yes Paula," the other replied, darting a queer look at her. "If I
am to be held to a point--it is--because, as a writer, he uses what is
of value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his
garret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his
recent first-hand studies in passion."
"You say he was drinking--when you knew him?"
"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play
less magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but
he must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't
dare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon."
Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish
you would tell me _just_ what Quentin Charter did to make you think of
him always--in connection with that name."
"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate
before you--also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with
some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly,
and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of
her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature.
".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe
that he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in _Caller
Herrin_,--my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an
exceptionally good play. It took his eye--my work especially--and he
arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this
formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue
was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was
peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain....
The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room,
not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he
was drinking--and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working
knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed--of every
book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing
himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it
was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I
wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight--to me. He used to
send notes in the forenoon--things he thought of, when he couldn't
sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early
hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving
for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way
home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for
me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he
said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me
believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since."