Beth Norvell

"We have been friends," he began more humbly. "Would you mind telling

me something regarding your plans? Just now I feel unable to offer you

either aid or advice."

Her face perceptibly brightened, as if this new mood quickly appealed

to her.

"That sounds ever so much better," she admitted, glancing up into his

face. "I have never enjoyed being scolded, as though I were a child

who had done wrong. Besides, I am quite convinced in this case I have

done precisely right. I think you would admit it also if you only had

patience to hear my story. I know exactly what I intend doing, or I

should never have given all that money away. I have an engagement."

"An engagement? Where? Is there another troupe playing here?"

She shrugged her shoulders, her hands clasped.

"No, not in the sense you mean; not the legitimate. I am going to

appear at the Gayety."

Winston stood grasping the back of the chair, staring straight at her,

his body motionless. For an instant he was conscious of a sudden

revulsion of feeling, a vague distrust of her true character, a doubt

of the real nature of this perverse personality. Such a resolution on

her part shocked him with its recklessness. Either she did not in the

least appreciate what such action meant, or else she woefully lacked in

moral judgment. Slowly, those shadowed dark eyes were uplifted to his

face, as if his very silence had awakened alarm. Yet she merely smiled

at the gravity of his look, shaking her dark hair in coquettish disdain.

"Again you apparently disapprove," she said with pretence of

carelessness. "How easily I succeed in shocking you to-day! Really, a

stranger might imagine I was under particular obligations to ask your

permission for the mere privilege of living. We have known each other

by sight for all of two weeks, and yet your face already speaks of

dictation. Evidently you do not like the Gayety."

"No; do you?"

"I?" she replied doubtfully, with a slight movement of the body more

expressive than words. "There are times when necessity, rather than

taste, must control the choice. But truly, since you ask the question,

I do not like the Gayety. It is far too noisy, too dirty, too gaudy,

and too decidedly primitive. But then, beggars may not always be

choosers, you know. I am no bright, scintillating 'star'; I am not

even a mining engineer possessing a bank account in Denver; I am merely

an unknown professional actress, temporarily stranded, and the good

angel of the Gayety offers me twenty dollars a week. That is my

answer."