The very sound of her voice was a tonic. He almost smiled as he answered her.
"Just a sort of hankering for the moon and a sudden fear lest I mightn"t get it."
"You"re spoilt, that"s what"s the matter with you," she declared brusquely.
"It never occurred to me," he said gloomily, "that life had been over-kind."
"Oh, cut it out!" she answered. "Here you are not only set on your feet but absolutely held up there; all the papers full of Merton Ware"s brilliant play, and Merton Ware, the new dramatist, with his social gifts--such an acquisition to New York Society! Why, it isn"t so very long ago, after all, that you hadn"t a soul in New York to speak to.
I saw something in your face that night. I thought you were hungry. So you were, only it wasn"t for food. It cheered you up even to talk with me. And look at you to-day! Clubs and parties and fine friends, and there you were, half dazed in Broadway! Be careful, man. You don"t know what it is to be down and out. You haven"t been as near it as I have, anyway, or you"d lift your head up and be thankful."
"Martha," he began earnestly--
"Miss Grimes!" she interrupted firmly. "Don"t let there be any mistake about that. I hate familiarity."
"Miss Grimes, then," he went on. "You talk about my friends. Quite right.
I should think I have been introduced to nearly a thousand people since the night my play was produced. I have dined at a score of houses and many scores of restaurants. The people are pleasant enough, too, but all the time it"s Merton Ware the dramatist they are patting on the back.
They don"t know anything about Merton Ware the man. Perhaps there are some of them would be glad to, but you see it"s too soon, and they seem to live too quickly here to make friends. I am almost as lonely as I was, so far as regards ordinary companionship. Last night I felt the first little glow of real friendliness--just the men down at the club."
"You"ve put all your eggs into one basket, that"s what you"ve done," she declared.
"That"s true enough," he groaned.
"And like all men--selfish brutes!" she proceeded deliberately--"you expect everything. Fancy expecting everything from a woman like Miss Dalstan! Why, you aren"t worthy of it, you know."
"Perhaps not," he admitted, "but you see, Miss Grimes, there is something in life which seems to have pa.s.sed you by up till now."
"Has it indeed!" she objected. "You think I"ve never had a young man, eh?
Perhaps you"re right. Haven"t found much time for that sort of rubbish.
Anyway, this is where I hop on a trolley car."
"Wait a moment," he begged. "Don"t leave me yet. You"ve nothing to do, have you?"
"Nothing particular," she confessed, "except go home and cook my dinner."
"Look here," he went on eagerly, "I feel like work. I"ve got the second act of my new play in my mind. Come round with me and let me try dictating it. I"ll give you something to eat in my rooms. It"s for the theatre, mind. I never tried dictating. I believe I could do it to you."
"In your rooms," she repeated, a little doubtfully.
"They won"t talk scandal about us, Miss Grimes," he a.s.sured her. "To tell you the truth, I want to be near the telephone."
"In case she rings you up, eh?"
"That"s so. I said something I ought not to have done. I ought to have waited for her, but it was something that had been tearing at me ever since last night, and I couldn"t bear it."
"Some blunderers, you men," Miss Grimes sighed. "Well, I"m with you."
He led her almost apologetically to the lift of the handsome building in which his new rooms were situated. They were very pleasant bachelor rooms, with black oak walls and green hangings, prints upon the wall, a serviceable writing-table, and a deep green carpet. She looked around her and at the servant who had come forward at their entrance, with a little sniff.
"Shall you be changing to-night, sir?" he asked.
"Not to-night," Philip answered quickly. "Tell the waiter to send up a simple dinner for two--I can"t bother to order. And two c.o.c.ktails," he added, as an afterthought.
Martha stared after the disappearing manservant disparagingly.
"Some style," she muttered. "A manservant, eh? Don"t know as I ever saw one before off the stage."
"Don"t be silly," he remonstrated. "He has four other flats to look after besides mine. It"s the way one lives, nowadays, cheaper than ordinary hotels or rooms. Take off your coat."
She obeyed him, depositing it carefully in a safe place. Then she strolled around the room, finding pictures little to her taste, and finally threw herself into an easy-chair.
"Are we going to work before we eat?" she asked.
"No, afterwards," he told her. "Have a cigarette?"
She held it between her fingers but declined a match.
"I"ll wait for the c.o.c.ktails," she decided. "Now listen here, Mr. Ware, there"s a word or two I"d like to say to you."
"Go ahead," he invited listlessly.
"You men," she continued, looking him squarely in the face, "think a lot too much of yourselves. You think so much of yourselves that as often as not you"ve no time to think of other folk. A month or so ago who were you? You were hiding in a cheap tenement house, scared out of your wits, dressed pretty near as shabbily as I was, with a detective on your track, and with no idea of what you were going to do for a living. And now look at you. Who"s done it all?"
"Of course, my play being successful," he began--
She broke in at once.
"You and your play! Who took your play? Who produced it at the New York Theatre and acted in it so that people couldn"t listen without a sob in their throats and a tingling all over? Yours isn"t the only play in the world! I bet Miss Dalstan has a box full of them. She probably chose yours because she knew that you were feeling pretty miserable, because she"d got sorry for you coming over on the steamer, because she has a great big heart, and is always trying to do something for others. She"s made a man of you. Oh! I know a bit about plays. I know that with the royalties you"re drawing you can well afford rooms like these and anything else you want. But that isn"t all she"s done. She"s introduced you to her friends, she"s taken more notice of you than any man around.
She takes you out automobile driving, she lets you spend all your spare time in her rooms. She don"t mind what people say. You dine with her and take her home after the play. You have more of her than any other person alive. Say, what I want to ask is--do you think you"re properly grateful?"
"I couldn"t ever repay Miss Dalstan," he acknowledged, a little sadly, "but--"
"Look here, no "buts"!" she interrupted. "You think I don"t know anything. Perhaps I don"t, and perhaps I do. I was standing in the door of the office when you two came in from your automobile drive this afternoon. I saw her come away without wishing you good-by, then I saw her turn and nod, looking just as usual, and I saw her face afterwards.
If I had had you, my man, as close to me then as you are now, I"d have boxed your ears."
He moved uneasily in his chair. There was no doubt about the girl"s earnestness. She was leaning a little forward, and her brown eyes were filled with a hard, accusing light. There was a little spot of colour, even, in her sallow cheeks. She was unmistakably angry.
"I"d like to know who you are and what you think yourself to make a woman look like that?" she wound up.
The waiter entered with the c.o.c.ktails and began to lay the cloth for dinner. Philip paced the room uneasily until he had gone.
"Look here, my little friend," he said, when at last the door was closed, "there"s a great deal of sound common sense in what you say. I may be an egoist--I dare say I am. I"ve been through the proper training for it, and I"ve started life again on a pretty one-sided basis, perhaps.
But--have you ever been jealous?"
"Me jealous!" she repeated scornfully. "What of, I wonder?"
There was a suspicious glitter in her eyes, a queer little tremble in her tone. His question, however, was merely perfunctory. She represented little more to him, at that moment, than the incarnation of his own conscience.
"Very likely you haven"t," he went on. "You are too independent ever to care much for any one. Well, I"ve been half mad with jealousy since last night. That is the truth of it. There"s another man wants her, the man who built the theatre for her. She told me about him yesterday while we were out together."