Part 58

"No, you don't either," retorted he. "You're one of those cold, stand-me-off women who can't comprehend the nature of man."

"As you please," said she. In her eyes there was a gleam that more than suggested a possibility of some man--some man she might fancy--seeing an amazingly different Cyrilla Brindley.

"I may say I was daft about pretty women," continued Baird. "I never read an item about a pretty woman in the papers, or saw a picture of a pretty woman that I didn't wish I knew her--well. Can you imagine that?" laughed he.

"Commonplace," said Cyrilla. "All men are so. That's why the papers always describe the woman as pretty and why the pictures are published."

"Really? Yes, I suppose so." Baird looked chagrined. "Anyhow, here I am, all for one woman. And why? I can't explain it to myself. She's pretty, lovely, entrancing sometimes. She has charm, grace, sweetness. She dresses well and carries herself with a kind of sweet haughtiness. She looks as if she knew a lot--and nothing bad. Do you know, I can't imagine her having been married to that beast! I've tried to imagine it. I simply can't."

"I shouldn't try if I were you," said Mrs. Brindley.

"But I was talking about why I love her. Does this bore you?"

"A little," laughed Cyrilla. "I'd rather hear some man talking about MY charms. But go on. You are amusing, in a way."

"I'll wager I am. You never thought I'd be caught? I believed I was immune--vaccinated against it. I thought I knew all the tricks and turns of the sex. Yet here I am!"

"What do you think caught you?"

"That's the mystery. It's simply that I can't do without her. Everything she looks and says and does interests me more than anything else in the world. And when I'm not with her I'm wishing I were and wondering how she's looking or what she's saying or doing. You don't think she'll refuse me?" This last with real anxiety.

"I haven't an idea," replied Mrs. Brindley. "She's--peculiar. In some moods she would. In others, she couldn't. And I've never been able to settle to my satisfaction which kind of mood was the real Mary Stevens."

"She IS queer, isn't she?" said Stanley thoughtfully. "But I've told her she'd be free to go on with the career. Fact is, I want her to do it."

Mrs. Brindley's eyes twinkled. "You think it would justify you to your set in marrying her, if she made a great hit?"

Stanley blushed ingenuously. "I'll not deny that has something to do with it," he admitted. "And why not?"

"Why not, indeed?" said she. "But, after she had made the hit, you'd want her to quit the stage and take her place in society. Isn't that so?"

"You ARE a keen one," exclaimed he admiringly. "But I didn't say that to her. And you won't, will you?"

"It's hardly necessary to ask that," said Mrs. Brindley. "Now, suppose-- You don't mind my talking about this?"

"What I want," replied he. "I can't talk or think anything but her."

"Now, suppose she shouldn't make a hit. Suppose she should fail--should not develop reliable voice enough?"

Stanley looked frightened. "But she can't fail," he cried with over-energy. "There's no question about her voice."

"I understand," Mrs. Brindley hastened to say. "I was simply making conversation with her as the subject."

"Oh, I see." Stanley settled back.

"Suppose she should prove not to be a great artist--what then?" persisted Cyrilla, who was deeply interested in the intricate obscure problem of what people really thought as distinguished from what they professed and also from what they imagined they thought.

"The fact that she's a great artist--that's part of her," said Baird. "If she weren't a great singer, she wouldn't be she--don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with an ironic sadness which she indulged openly because there was no danger of his understanding.

"I don't exactly love her because she amounts to a lot--or is sure to," pursued he, vaguely dissatisfied with himself. "It's just as she doesn't care for me because I've got the means to take care of her right, yet that's part of me--and she'd not be able to marry me if I hadn't. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with more irony and less sadness. "There's always SOME reason beside love."