"Why, here he is now with--with Eugene Gresham," interrupted Perdita. This was but the second time Perdita had seen Eugene since his return a few days before.
Out from the wings stepped the two men and then clambered over the footlights and the orchestra space, and hastened down the aisle to join Mrs. Hepworth and Miss Carmine, who had now a number of large photographs spread over their knees, intently studying them.
"Good morning," Wallace shook hands exuberantly with both women. "Went splendidly, didn't it? We're going to have the first act over again."
"Very impressive, very," said Gresham, who looked in the best of health and spirits.
Maud cast one withering look at him, but it glanced lightly off, turned aside by his smile. He saw it, however, and as quickly as possible got into a seat on the other side of Perdita.
"Have you seen the papers?" he asked happily. "Blessings on Miss Fuschia Fleming. I shall do my humble best to keep the ball rolling. As soon as she appears in New York, I'm going to put in a request to do her portrait. Something bizarre, weird and splotchily thrilling, you know. Quite violent. That will keep a crowd around it from dawn to dark as soon as it's exhibited. It doesn't make the least difference whether she has any ability or not. She may be, and probably is, the most awkward, scrawny and nasal of western actresses; what of it? With Hepworth for her angel and Gresham for her painter, her vogue is secure. And Perdita, Rosita, your freedom is that much nearer."
"Eugene," Perdita's eyes flashed, "I think it extremely bad taste, even vulgar, of you to talk in that vein."
And Eugene hastened to retrieve his blunder, and soon Perdita, who was never long impervious to his spell, was smiling once more.
Miss Carmine, however, was of sterner stuff. She did not wince, although she saw that there was no remedy for Wallace's malady but the knife, and he, unwittingly, wasted no time in precipitating his destiny.
"What are you doing with all those photographs of yourself and Mrs. Hepworth?" he asked.
"We are going to give them to some reporters, who are getting up stories for the Sunday papers."
"Maud!" Martin spoke in the deep, pained tones of his leading man. "Maud, I have said nothing. In fact I admired and approved when you and Mrs. Hepworth went into this business venture. But such methods for you, for her! Do you not feel that you owe something to yourselves, and that she at least owes something to Hepworth? Oh, of what are you thinking?"