"I hate to go and leave you here alone, but I must catch that train."

"Oh, don't mind me," she replied, smiling up at him. "I'll stay a few
minutes yet." Nodding towards the left, she added: "I see Elfie over
there. I'll sit with her. Don't worry about me. I'll go home in a
taxi."

He took her hand. He would have liked to kiss her, but like most men,
he hated to make public demonstration of his feelings.

"Good-bye, little one," he said fondly. "Be a good girl. Write me
directly you get to Denver. Be sure to send me all the press
notices----" Facetiously he added: "--all the bad ones mind. I'm not
interested in the others. And when you're ready to come home, just
telegraph, and I'll come for you. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, Will."

The next moment he was gone.

For some time after his, departure she sat quietly at the table, toying
idly with the rich food in front of her. Absorbed in her own thoughts
she paid no attention to what was transpiring around. She was
singularly depressed that evening, she knew not why. It was very
foolish, for she had every reason to feel elated. Things certainly
continued to go her way. After all the storm and stress of her past
life, she was at last settled and contented. She had plenty of money, a
good friend, influence with the theatre managers, and now she had
secured the very engagement she had been longing for. What could any
reasonable woman possibly desire more? Yet for all that she sometimes
felt there was something missing in her life. She was too intelligent
not to know the degradation of the kind of existence she was leading,
and sometimes the realization of it made her utterly miserable. If it
were not for the champagne and the hourly excitement which helped her
to forget, she sometimes felt she would take her life. In her heart she
knew that she did not love Will Brockton, and she believed him too
clever a man to imagine for a moment that she had any real affection
for him. They were pals, that was all. He liked her very much--she was
sure of that. But it was not love. How could a woman of her character
expect to inspire decent love in any man? Theirs was a careless,
unconventional tie, which could be broken to-morrow. A quarrel, and she
would see him no more. She shivered. The mere thought of such a
contingency was decidedly unpleasant. It's so easy, she mused, to
become accustomed to automobiles, luxurious apartments, fine gowns and
the rest, but so hard--oh, so hard!--t