"Why do you think it would prove interesting?"
She regarded him for a time with close scrutiny.
"Well, I don't quite get you, Bobby. You are rather a riddle in a way. Sir Galahad on Broadway--doesn't that strike you as a funny combination?"
"Rather paradoxical," he admitted, "the environment might fit Don Juan better. But why Sir Galahad on Broadway?"
"That's what they all call you. You are notoriously unattainable. The only man in this game who hasn't had an affair with any ash-trash."
"Ash-trash; actress," she enlightened. "The title is a little conceit of my own--poor but original. You know perfectly well that Stella Marcine simply threw herself at your head during the rehearsals. And she told me that you never even asked her out to supper."
"Everybody else does. Most men marry her, at one time or another."
"Of course," she went on thoughtfully after a pause, "it's very charming to remain naïve after years of this life, unless, as stage gossip says, it's merely a pose."
"It's not a pose," replied the man quietly.
"I know that," she hastened to assure him. "But what I want to know is this. What's behind it? Who is she?"
"Why should there necessarily be any She?" he demanded. "Can't a man live his own life independently of prevalent customs--merely because it is his own life?"
She shook her head and flecked the ash from her cigarette. She seemed to be pondering the matter before hazarding judgment. Then her words came positively enough.
"Don't pull that old line on me, about being the captain of your soul, Bobby; I know better.... Oh, I used to believe all those pretty things. I wanted to go on believing them, but there wasn't a chance."
"Just what the fool sailor finds who has the idea that he's bigger than tides and gales; who fancies he can sail his little duck-pond boat in the gulf stream, through reefs and hurricanes and bring it out with the paint fresh." Her voice had perceptibly hardened. "You probably know a lot of girls, Bobby, who wouldn't invite me to tea--certainly not if they knew all my story. Nevertheless when we line up for the big tryout, I guess the Almighty will take a look at their untempted innocence, and a glance at me--and somehow I'm not worried about what He'll say. No woman would muddy her shoes if we all had Walter Raleighs to spread coats over the puddles."