he led the way into the lobby. she was intensely disturbed, but she could not find the courage to quarrel with him in the presence of the hall-boys. those who had

suites of rooms were permitted to receive guests in them. reben was the first man that had come alone to sheila’s rooms, and she felt that the elevator-boy was trying

to disguise his cynical excitement.

what could she say to him? how rebuke an unexpressed comment? she hoped that pennock would be there or would come along speedily to save the situation. she was angry

and discomfited as she unlocked her door, switched on the lights, and offered reben a chair in her little parlor.

sheila saw that reben’s eyes were eagerly searching the apartment for signs of a third person. she was tempted to go to pennock’s room and call some message to her

imaginary presence. but she resented her own cowardice and her need of a duenna. she laid off her hat, seated herself with smiling hospitality, and waited for reben to

say his say.

he indicated his cigar with a querying lift of the eyebrows, and she nodded her consent.

then the business man of him began at the beginning as if he had much to say in a short time and did not want to lose the momentum of his emotion:

“sheila, you’re a wonderful girl. if you weren’t i shouldn’t be taking you up from the army of actresses that are just as ambitious as you are. i’d be very blind

not to see what the whole public sees and not to feel what everybody feels.

“this cub vickery felt your fascination when you were a child. he never forgot you. he’s trying to put something of you into his play. that other fellow he told you

about has made a vow to get to you. you have draught, and all that it means.

“but the brighter the light, the firmer its standard must be. the farther your lantern shines, the bigger and stronger and taller a lighthouse it needs. you know

there’s such a thing as hiding a light under a bushel.

“now, i’m already as big a manager as you’ll ever be a star. i can give you advantages nobody else can give you. i’ve given you some of them already. i can give

you more. in fact, nobody else can give you any, for i’ve got you under a contract that makes it possible for me to keep anybody else from exploiting you. but i’m

willing and anxious to do everything i can for you. the question is, what are you willing to do for me?”

sheila knew what he meant, but she answered in a shy voice: “why, i’ll do all i can—of course. i’ll work like a slave. i’ll try to make you all the money i’m

able to.”

“money? bagh!” he sneered. “what’s money to me? i love it—as a game, yes. but i don’t mind losing it. you’ve known me to drop forty or fifty thousand at a throw

and not whimper, haven’t you?”

“yes.”

“you’ll do all you can, you say. but will you? there’s something in life besides money, sheila. there’s—there’s—” he tried to say “love,” but it was an

impossible word to get out at once. instead he groped for her hand and took it in his hot clench.

she drew her cold, slim fingers away with a petulant, girlish, “don’t!”

he sighed desperately and laughed with bitterness. “i knew you’d do nothing for me. you’d let me work for you, and make you famous and rich, and squander fortunes

on your glory, and you’d let me die of loneliness. you’d let me eat my heart out like a love-sick stage-door johnny and you wouldn’t care. but i tell you, sheila,

even a manager is a man, and i can’t live on business alone. i’ve got to have some woman’s companionship and tenderness and devotion.”

sheila could not refrain from suggesting, “i thought mrs. rhys—”

“mrs. rhys!” he snarled. “that worn-out, burned-out volcano? she’s an old woman. i want youth and beauty and—oh, i want you, sheila.”

“i—i’m sorry,” she almost apologized, trying not to insult such ardor.

“oh, i know i’m not young or handsome, but i’ll surround you with youth. i’ll buy that play of your friend vickery’s; i’ll get the biggest man in the country to

whip it into shape; i’ll give it the finest production ever a play had; i’ll make the critics swallow it; i’ll buy the ones that are for sale, and i’ll play on the

vanity of the others. if it fails, i’ll buy you another play and another till you hit the biggest success ever known. then i’ll name a theater after you. i’ll

produce you in london, get you commanded to court. i’ll make you the greatest actress in the world. these young fellows may be pretty to play with, but what can they

do for you except ruin your career and interfere with your ambition and make a toy of you? i can give you wealth and fame and—immortality! and all i ask you to give

me is your—your”—now he said it—“your love.”

“i—i’m sorry,” sheila mumbled.

“you mean you won’t?” he roared.

“how can i?” she pleaded, still apologetic. “love isn’t a thing you can just take and give to anybody you please, is it? i thought it was something that—that

takes you and gives you to anybody it pleases. isn’t that it? i don’t know. i’m not sure i know what love is. but that’s what i’ve always understood.”

he grunted at the puerility of this, and said, brusquely, “well, if you can’t give me love, then give me—you.”

“how do you mean—give you me?”

“oh, you’re no child, sheila,” he snarled. “don’t play the ingenue with me. you know what i mean.”

her voice grew years older as she answered, icily: “when you say i’m no child, it makes me think i understand what you mean. but i can’t believe that i do.”

“why?”

“well, you’ve known my father and mother so long and they like you so much, and—well—it doesn’t seem possible that you would mean me any harm.”

no amount of heroics could have shamed him like that. his eyes rolled like a cornered wolf’s. he shut them, and with one deep breath seemed to absolve himself and

purify his soul. he mumbled, “i—i want you to—to marry me, sheila!”

sheila seemed to breathe a less stifling air. she felt sorry for him now; but he asked a greater charity than she could grant. she answered: “oh, i couldn’t marry

anybody; not now. i don’t want to marry—at all.” she sought for the least-insulting explanation. “it—it would hurt me professionally.”

his self-esteem blinded him to her tact. he persisted: “we could be married secretly. no one needs to know.”

she protested, “you can’t keep such a thing secret.”

he retorted: “of course you can. they never found out that sonia eccleston was married to her manager.”

“she never was!”

“i saw her with their child in switzerland.”

“then it was true! i’ve heard so many people say so. but i never could be sure.”

“it’s true. our marriage could be kept just as secret as that.”

“just about!” she laughed, with sudden triumph.

he was too earnest to realize that he had set a trap and stepped into it till he sprung it.

he was suddenly enraged at her and at himself. he would not accept so farcical a twist to his big scene. he broke out into a flame of wrathful desire, and rose

threateningly:

“marriage or no marriage, sheila, you’ve got to belong to me, or—or—”

“or what?”

“or you’ll never be a star. you’ll never play that play of vickery’s or anybody else’s. you’ll play whatever part i select for you, as your contract says, or you

’ll play nothing at all.”

he only kindled sheila’s tindery temper. she leaped to her feet and stormed up in his face: “is this a proposal of marriage or a piece of blackmail? i signed a

contract, you know, not a receipt for one slave. marry you, mr. reben? humph! not if you were the last man on earth! not if i had to black up and play old darky women.

”

the passion that overmastered him resolved to overmaster her.

“you can’t get away from me. i love you!”

he thrust his left arm back of her and enveloped her in a huge embrace, seizing her right arm in his hand. sheila had been embraced by numerous men in her stage

career. she had stood with their arms about her at rehearsal and before the public. she had replied to their ardors according to the directions of the manuscript—with

shyness, with boldness, with rapture.

at one of the rehearsals of “uncle dudley,” indeed, reben himself, after complaining of brereton’s manner of clasping sheila, had climbed to the stage and

demonstrated how he wanted sheila embraced. she had smiled at his awkwardness and thought nothing of it.

but that was play-acting, with people looking on. this was reality, in seclusion. intention is nearly everything. then it was business. now the touch of his hand upon

her elbow made her flesh creep; the big arm about her was as repulsive as a python’s coil. she fought away from him in a nausea of hatred. while his muscles exerted

all their tyranny over her little body, his lips were pleading, maundering appeals for a little pity, a little love.

she fought him in silence, dreading the scandal of a scream. she wanted none of that publicity. her silence convinced him that her resistance was not sincere; he

thought it really the primeval instinct to put up an interesting struggle and sweeten the surrender.

with a chuckle of triumph he drew her to his breast and thrust his head forward toward the cheek dimly aglow. but just as he would have kissed her she twisted in his

clutch and lurched aside, wrenched her right arm free, and bent it round her head to protect her precious flesh. then as he thrust his head forward again in pursuit of

her, she swung her arm back with all her might and drove her elbow into his face.

some irish instinct of battle inspired her to swing from waist and shoulder and put her whole weight into the blow. only his reben luck saved him from having a

mouthful of loose teeth, a broken nose, or a squashed eye. as it was, the little bludgeon fell on his eminent cheek-bone with an impact that almost knocked him

senseless amid a shower of meteors.

reben’s heartache was transferred to his head. his arms fell from her and romance departed in one enormously prosaic “ouch!”

the victorious little cave-woman cowered aside and rubbed her bruised elbow, and pouted, and felt ashamed of herself for a terrible brute. then, as the ancient amazons

must undoubtedly have done after every battle, she began to cry.

reben was too furious to weep. he nursed his splitting skull in his hands and thought of the mosaic law “an eye for an eye.” he longed for surcease of pain so that

he might devise a perfect revenge against the little beast that had tried to murder him just because he paid her the supreme honor of loving her. he could not trust

himself to speak. he found his hat and went out, closing the door softly.

the elevator that took him down returned shortly with pennock. she had seen reben cross the hotel lobby, and she came in with a glare of horror. she sniffed audibly

the cigar-smoke in the precincts. her wrath was so dire that she stared at sheila weeping, and made no motion toward her till sheila broke out in a clutter of sobs:

“i—i—want some witch-hazel for my elbow. i think i b-b-broke it on old reben’s j-j-jaw.”

then the amazing pennock caught her in her arms and laughed aloud. it was the first time sheila had heard her laugh aloud. but when she looked up pennock was weeping

as well, the tears sluicing down into her smile.