"If you should hear of anything, it would be awful' good of you to let
me know."
"Depend upon me, I shall."
"Care of The Dramatic Mirror will always get me."
"I shan't forget."
"Well...." She offered him her hand with a splendidly timid smile. "I
suppose it's good-bye for good this time."
Matthias accepted her hand, shook it without a tremor, and released it
easily.
"I've a notion it is, Joan," he admitted.
She turned toward the door, advanced a pace or two, and paused.
"They say Arlington's going to make a lot of new productions next
Fall...."
"Yes?"
"Well, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind putting in a good word for
me."
"I would be glad to, but unfortunately I don't know Mr. Arlington."
"But you know Mr. Marbridge, and everybody says he's Arlington's silent
partner."
Matthias looked as uncomfortable as he felt.
"I am not sure that is true," he said slowly, "and--well, to tell the
truth, Marbridge and I aren't on the best of terms. I'm afraid I
couldn't influence him in any way--except, perhaps, to prejudice him."
"Oh!" Joan said blankly....
It came to her, in a flash, that the two men might have quarrelled about
her, thanks to the obvious fascination she had exerted over Marbridge,
that age-old day at Tanglewood.
"I suppose," she ventured pensively, "I might go to see him--Mr.
Marbridge--myself--?"
"I'm afraid I can't advise you."
This time the accent of finality was unmistakable. Joan bridled with
resentment. After all, he'd no real call to be so uppish, simply because
she hadn't let him stand between her and her career....
"You don't really think I ought to go and see him, do you?"
"I wish you wouldn't ask me, Joan."
"But I've got no one to advise me.... If you don't think it wise, I wish
you'd say so. I thought perhaps it was a chance...."
Matthias shrugged, excessively irritated by her persistence. "I can only
say that I wouldn't advise any woman to look to Marbridge for anything
honourable," he said reluctantly.
"Oh!" the girl said in a startled tone.
"But--I'm sorry you made me say that. It's none of my affair. Please
forget I said it."
"But you make it so hard for me."
"I?" he cried indignantly--"_I_ make it hard for you!"
"Well, I come to you for advice--friendly advice--and you close in my
very face the only door I can see to any sort of work. It's--it's pretty
hard. I can act, I know I can act! I guess I proved that when I was with
Charlie--Mr. Quard--the star of 'The Lie,' you know. I couldn't've stuck
as long as I did if I hadn't had talent.... But back here in New York,
all that doesn't seem to count. Here I've been going around for two
months, and all they offer me is a chorus job with some road company.
But Arlington ... he employs more girls than anybody in the business. I
know he'd give me a chance to show what I can do, if I could only get to
him. And then you tell me not to try to get to him the only way I know."
Abruptly Joan ceased, breathing heavily after that long and, even to
her, unexpected speech. But it had been well delivered: she could feel
that. She clenched her hands at her sides in a gesture plagiarized from
a soubrette star in one of her infrequent scenes of stage excitement;
and stood regarding Matthias with wide, accusing eyes.
His own were blank....
He was trying to account to himself for the fact that this girl seemed
to have the knack of making him feel a heartless scoundrel, even when
his stand was morally impregnable, even though it were unassailable.
Here was this girl, evidently convinced that he had not dealt squarely
with her, believing that he deliberately withheld--out of pique,
perhaps--aid in his power to offer her....
He passed a hand wearily across his eyes, and turned back toward his
work-chair.
"You'd better sit down," he said quietly, "while I think this out."
Without a word the girl returned to the arm-chair and perched herself
gingerly upon the edge of it, ready to rise and flee (she seemed)
whenever it should pardonably suggest itself to Matthias that the only
right and reasonable thing for him to do was to rise up and murder
her....
On his part, sitting, he rested elbows upon the litter of manuscript,
and held his head in his hands.
He was sorry now that he had yielded to the temptation to be
plain-spoken about Arlington and Marbridge. But she had driven him to
it; and she was an empty-headed little thing and ought really to be kept
out of _that_ galley. On the other hand, he was afraid that if he
allowed himself to be persuaded to help her find a new engagement, she
would misunderstand his motives one way or another--most probably the
one. He couldn't afford to have her run away with the notion that his
affection for her had been merely hibernating. He had not only himself,
he had Venetia to think of, now. To her he had dedicated his life, to a
dumb, quixotic passion. Some day she might need him; some day, it seemed
certain, she would need him. She was presently to have a child; and
Marbridge was going on from bad to worse; things could not forever
endure as they were between those two. And then she would be friendless,
a woman with a child fighting for the right to live in solitary
decency....
But Joan!... If she were headed that way, toward the Arlington wheel
within the wheel of the stage, even at risk of blame and
misunderstanding Matthias felt that he ought to do what could be done to
set her back upon the right road. It was too bad, really. And it was
none of his business. The girl had given herself to the theatre of her
own volition, after all. Or had she? Had the right of choice been
accorded her? Or was it simply that she had been designed by Nature
especially for that business, to which women of her calibre seemed so
essential? Was she, after all, simply life-stuff manufactured hastily
and carelessly in an old, worn mould, because destined solely to be fed
wholesale into the insatiable maw of the stage?
He shook his head in weary doubt, and sighed.
"Probably," he said, fumbling with a pen and avoiding her eyes--"I
presume--you'd better come back in a day or two--say Tuesday. That will
give me time to look round and see what I can scare up for you. Or
perhaps Wednesday would be even better...."
He dropped the pen and rose, his manner inviting her to leave.
"Wednesday?" she repeated, reluctantly getting up again.
"At four, if that's convenient."
"Yes, indeed, it is. And ... thank you so much ... Jack."
"No, no," Matthias expostulated wearily.
"No, I mean it," she insisted. "You're awf'ly sweet not to be--unkind to
me."
"Believe me, I could never be that."
"Then--g'dafternoon."
"Good afternoon, Joan."
But as he moved to open the door, his eyes were caught by the flash from
a facet of the diamond; and the thought came to him that its presence
there assorted ill with his latest assurance to the girl. Catching it
up, he offered it to Joan as she was about to go.
"And this," he said, smiling--"don't forget it, please."
Automatically her hand moved out to take it, but was stayed. Her eyes
widened with true consternation, and she gasped faintly.
"You--you don't mean it?"
"Oh, yes, I do. Please take it. I've really no use for it, Joan,
and--well, you and I know what professional life means." He grinned
awry. "It might be of service to you some day."
With a cry of gratitude that was half a sob, but with no other
acknowledgment, the girl accepted the gift, stumbled through the door in
a daze, and so from the house.