She did not answer, but she thought, "Not to your Samson, Stephen Albee."
He was gone and she still had the letter. When the act was over she went back to the anteroom to read it. Yes, there it was on Simpson, Aspinwall & McCarter's heavy, simple stationery—clear and unequivocal. Mr. Simpson regretted so much that conditions had arisen which made it imperative——
Lydia glanced across the house and caught O'Bannon laughing at something that Eleanor was saying to him. She smiled. Whatever the joke was, she thought she knew a better one.
"How lovely you look, Lydia," said Bobby, seeing the smile. "Almost like a madonna in that white stuff—like a madonna painted by an Apache Indian."
"Have you anything that I could write on Bobby—a scrap of paper?"
Bobby tore out a page from a cherished address book and gave it to her with a gold pencil from his watch chain. She stood under the light, pressing the top of the pencil against her lips. Then she wrote rapidly:
"I have something of importance to say to you. Will you meet me in the lobby on the Thirty-ninth Street side at the end of the performance and let me drive you home?
"Lydia Thorne."
She folded it and held it out.
"Will you take that to O'Bannon and get an answer from him?"
"To O'Bannon?" said Bobby. "Has anything happened?"