“And I’m in a daze!” she cried happily. “I didn’t think there was a chance and I’ve thought of nothing else since I read the book a year ago.”
“It’s wonderful. I’m awfully glad.”
He had the feeling, though, that he should look at her with a certain regret; one couldn’t jump from such a scene as this afternoon to a plane of casual friendly interest. Suddenly she began to laugh.
“Oh, we’re such actors, George—you and I.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, yes, you do. You did this afternoon. It was a pity we didn’t have a camera.”
Short of declaring then and there that he loved her, there was absolutely nothing more to say. He grinned acquiescently. A group formed around them and absorbed them, and George, feeling that the evening had settled something, began to think about going home. An excited and sentimental elderly lady—someone’s mother—came up and began telling him how much she believed in him, and he was polite and charming to her, as only he could be, for half an hour. Then he went to Kay, who had been sitting with Arthur Busch all evening, and suggested that they go.
She looked up unwillingly. She had had several highballs and the fact was mildly apparent. She did not want to go, but she got up after a mild argument and George went upstairs for his coat. When he came down Katherine Davis told him that Kay had already gone out to the car.
The crowd had increased; to avoid a general good night he went out through the sun-parlor door to the lawn; less than twenty feet away from him he saw the figures of Kay and Arthur Busch against a bright street lamp; they were standing close together and staring into each other’s eyes. He saw that they were holding hands.
After the first start of surprise George instinctively turned about, retraced his steps, hurried through the room he had just left, and came noisily out the front door. But Kay and Arthur Busch were still standing close together, and it was lingeringly and with abstracted eyes that they turned around finally and saw him. Then both of them seemed to make an effort; they drew apart as if it was a physical ordeal. George said good-by to Arthur Busch with special cordiality, and in a moment he and Kay were driving homeward through the clear California night.
He said nothing, Kay said nothing. He was incredulous. He suspected that Kay had kissed a man here and there, but he had never seen it happen or given it any thought. This was different; there had been an element of tenderness in it and there was something veiled and remote in Kay’s eyes that he had never seen there before.
Without having spoken, they entered the house; Kay stopped by the library door and looked in.
“There’s someone there,” she said, and she added without interest: “I’m going upstairs. Good night.”
As she ran up the stairs the person in the library stepped out into the hall.
“Mr. Hannaford——”
He was a pale and hard young man; his face was vaguely familiar, but George didn’t remember where he had seen it befofe.
“Mr. Hannaford?” said the young man. “I recognize you from your pictures.” He looked at George, obviously a little awed.
“What can I do for you ?”
“Well, will you come in here ?”
“What is it? I don’t know who you are.”
“My name is Donovan. I’m Margaret Donovan’s brother.” His face toughened a little.
“Is anything the matter?”
Donovan made a motion toward the door. “Come in here.” His voice was confident now, almost threatening.
George hesitated, then he walked into the library. Donovan followed and stood across the table from him, his legs apart, his hands in his pockets.
“Hannaford,” he said, in the tone of a man trying to whip himself up to anger, “Margaret wants fifty thousand dollars.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” exclaimed George incredulously.
“Margaret wants fifty thousand dollars,” repeated Donovan.
“You’re Margaret Donovan’s brother ?”
“I am.”
“I don’t believe it.” But he saw the resemblance now. “Does Margaret know you’re here ?”
“She sent me here. She’ll hand over those two letters for fifty thousand, and no questions asked.”
“What letters?” George chuckled irresistibly. “This is some joke of Schroeder’s, isn’t it?”
“This ain’t a joke, Hannaford. I mean the letters you signed your name to this afternoon.”
III
An hour later George went upstairs in a daze. The clumsiness of the affair was at once outrageous and astounding. That a friend of seven years should suddenly request his signature on papers that were not what they were purported to be made all his surroundings seem diaphanous and insecure. Even now the design engrossed him more than a defense against it, and he tried to recreate the steps by which Margaret had arrived at this act of recklessness or despair.
She had served as script girl in various studios and for various directors for ten years; earning first twenty, now a hundred dollars a week. She was lovely-looking and she was intelligent; at any moment in those years she might have asked for a screen test, but some quality of initiative or ambition had been lacking. Not a few times had her opinion made or broken incipient careers. Still she waited at directors’ elbows, increasingly aware that the years were slipping away.
That she had picked George as a victim amazed him most of all. Once, during the year before his marriage, there had been a momentary warmth; he had taken her to a May fair ball, and he remembered that he had kissed her going home that night in the car. The flirtation trailed along hesitatingly for a week. Before it could develop into anything serious he had gone East and met Kay.
Young Donovan had shown him a carbon of the letters he had signed. They were written on the typewriter that he kept in his bungalow at the studio, and they were carefully and convincingly worded. They purported to be love letters, asserting that he was Margaret Donovan’s lover, that he wanted to marry her, and that for that reason he was about to arrange a divorce. It was incredible. Someone must have seen him sign them that morning; someone must have heard her say: “Your initials are like Mr. Harris’.”
George was tired. He was training for a screen football game to be played next week, with the Southern California varsity as extras, and he was used to regular hours. In the middle of a confused and despairing sequence of thought about Margaret Donovan and Kay, he suddenly yawned. Mechanically he went upstairs, undressed and got into bed.
Just before dawn Kay came to him in the garden. There was a river that flowed past it now, and boats faintly lit with green and yellow lights moved slowly, remotely by. A gentle starlight fell like rain upon the dark, sleeping face of the world, upon the black mysterious bosoms of the trees, the tranquil gleaming water and the farther shore.
The grass was damp, and Kay came to him on hurried feet: her thin slippers were drenched with dew. She stood upon his shoes, nestling close to him, and held up her face as one shows a book open at a page.
“Think how you love me,” she whispered. “I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember.”
“You’ll always be like this to me.”
“Oh, no; but promise me you’ll remember.” Her tears were falling. “I’ll be different, but somewhere lost inside of me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”
The scene dissolved slowly and George struggled into consciousness. He sat up in bed; it was morning. In the yard outside he heard the nurse instructing his son in the niceties of behavior for two-month-old babies. From the yard next door a small boy shouted mysteriously: “Who let that barrier through on me?”
Still in his pajamas, George went to the phone and called his lawyers. Then he rang for his man, and while he was being shaved—a certain order evolved from the chaos of the night before. First, he must deal with Margaret Donovan; second, he must keep the matter from Kay, who in her present state might believe anything; and, third, he must fix things up with Kay. The last seemed the most important of all.
As he finished dressing he heard the phone ring downstairs and, with an instinct of danger, picked up the receiver.
“Hello… Oh, yes.” Looking up, he saw that both his doors were closed. “Good morning, Helen… It’s all right, Dolores. I’m taking it up here.” He waited till he heard the receiver click downstairs.
“How are you this morning, Helen?”
“George, I called up about last night. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“Sorry? Why are you sorry?”
“For treating you like that. I don’t know what was in me, George. I didn’t sleep all night thinking how terrible I’d been.”
A new disorder established itself in George’s already littered mind.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. To his despair he heard his own voice run on: “For a minute I didn’t understand, Helen. Then I thought it was better so.”
“Oh, George,” came her voice after a moment, very low.
Another silence. He began to put in a cuff button.
“I had to call up,” she said after a moment. “I couldn’t leave things like that.”
The cuff button dropped to the floor; he stooped to pick it up, and then said “Helen!” urgently into the mouthpiece to cover the fact that he had momentarily been away.
“What, George?”
At this moment the hall door opened and Kay, radiating
