"Got a wife at home?" Joan repeated, laughing.
"No--nothing like _that_!" he asserted with intense earnestness. "I
mean, it's all right if you've got somebody keeping a flat warm for you,
some place not too far off Broadway; but if you marry into the
business--good _night_! You got all the trouble of being tied up for
life, and that's all."
"Why?"
"Managers don't want husband and wife in the same company. They're
always fighting each other's battles when they ain't fighting between
themselves. So you're always playing different routes, and the chances
are they never cross except it's inconvenient and you get caught and
nominated for the Alimony Club."
"Do you belong?"
"Didn't I just tell you nothing like that?" Quard protested with
unnecessary heat.
"Well," Joan murmured mischievously, "you seem to know so much about it.
I only wondered...."
Their place on the bill was near the end, that week: a trick bicyclist
followed them, and moving-pictures wound up the performance.
Consequently, by the time they were able to leave the theatre in the
afternoon the sun was already below the horizon. They emerged the same
evening from the stage-door to view a cloudless sky of pulsing amber,
shading into purple at the zenith, melting into rose along the western
rim of the world. A wash of old rose flooded the streets, lifting the
meanest structures out of their ugliness, lending an added dignity to
rows of square-set, old-fashioned residences of red-brick with white
marble trimmings.
"Which way are you going?" Quard enquired as they approached the corner
of a main thoroughfare. "Back to the hotel?"
"No; I'm sick of that hole," Joan replied with a vivid shudder. "I'm
going to take a walk. Want to come?"
"I was just going to ask you."
They turned off toward the Delaware.
It was the twenty-first of November--winter still a month away; yet the
breath of winter was in the air. It came up cool and brisk from the
river, enriching the colour in Joan's cheeks that were bright and
glowing from the scrubbing she always gave them after removing
grease-paint with cold cream. The blood coursed tingling through her
veins. Her eyes shone with deepened lustre. They walked with spirit, in
step, in a pensive silence infrequently disturbed.
"Of course," Quard presently offered without preface, "it's different in
vodeveal, if you stick to it."
"What's different?"
"Being married."
Joan's eyes widened momentarily. Then she laughed outright. "Gee! You
don't mean to say you've been chewing _that_ rag ever since breakfast?"
"Ah, I just happened to think of it again," said Quard with the air of
one whose motives are wantonly misconstrued.
Nevertheless, he wouldn't let the subject languish.
"There's plenty of family acts been playing the circuits Gawd knows how
long," he pursued, with a vast display of interest in the sunset glow.
"Look't the Cohans, before George planted the American flag in Longacre
Square and annexed it to the United States. And they ain't the only ones
by a long shot. I could name a plenty that'll stick in the big time
until their toes curl. It's all right to trot in double-harness so
long's you manage your own company."
"Well?" Joan asked with a sober mouth and mischievous eyes.
"Well--what?"
"If you're getting ready to slip me my two-weeks' notice, why not be a
man and say so?"
"What would I do that for?" Quard demanded indignantly.
"Because you're thinking about getting married; and there's only room
for one leading lady in any company I play in."
"Quit your kidding," the man advised sulkily; "you know I couldn't get
along without you."
"Yes," Joan admitted calmly, "_I_ know it, but I didn't know you did."
Quard shot a suspicious glance askance, but her face was immobile in its
flawless loveliness.
He started to say something, choked up and reconsidered with a painful
frown. A mature man's perfect freedom is not lightly to be thrown away.
And yet ... he doubted darkly the perfection of his freedom....
They held on in silence until they came to Riverside Park.
Over the dark profile of the Pennsylvania hills the sky was jade and
amethyst, a pool of light that dwindled swiftly in the thickening shades
of violet. Below them, as they paused on a lonely walk, the river stole
swiftly, like a great black serpent writhing through the shadows. A
frosty wind swept steadily into their faces, making cool and firm the
flesh flushed with exercise. There was no one near them. A train of
jewelled lights swept over the railroad bridge and vanished into the
night with a purring rumble that lent an accent to their isolation. Joan
hugged about her voluptuously her wonderful coat, stole a glance warm
with gratitude at the face of Quard. He intercepted it, and edged
nearer. Aglow and eager, she murmured something vapid about the
prettiness of the sky.
He answered only with the arm he passed about her. She suffered him,
lashes veiling her eyes, her head at rest in the hollow of his shoulder.
The man stared down at her exquisite, suffused face, luminous in the
last light of gloaming.
"Joan," he said throatily--"girlie, don't you love me--a little?"
Her mouth grew tremulous.
"I ... don't ... know," she whispered.
"I love you!" he cried suddenly in an exultant voice--"I love you!"
He folded her, unresisting, in both his arms, covering her face with
kisses, ardent, violent kisses that bruised and hurt her tender flesh
but which she still sought and hungered for, insatiable. She sobbed a
little in her happiness, feeling her body yield and yearn to his,
transported by that sweet, exquisite, nameless longing....
Then suddenly she was like a steel spring in his embrace, writhing to
free herself. Wondering, he tried to hold her closer, but she twisted
and fended him off with all the power of her strong young arms. And
still wondering, he humoured her. She drew away, but yet not wholly out
of his clasp.
"Charlie!" she panted.
"Darling!"
"How do you get married in New Jersey?"
He pulled up, dashed and a little disappointed, and laughed nervously.
"Why, you get a license and then--well, almost anybody'll do to tie the
knot."
She nodded tensely: "I guess a regular minister will be good enough for
us."
"I guess so," he demurred; and with another laugh: "I wasn't thinking
serious' about it, but I guess I might's well be married as the way I
am."
"Well," she said quietly, "we've _got_ to. It's the only way...."