Will winked at me, albeit a little dubiously, sensing a probable lack of appreciation on my part.
"When I came back to Chicago this trip," he continued, "I received a note from my quondam friend and later she came back to my dressing-room to see me. She made some pertinent remarks about the other woman, hinted at some persons being ingrates after all she had done to boom them when they were 'also rans' and, now that they had got there, threw down their old friends. I lost my temper a bit and we parted bad friends. The result was she transferred her booming to ——" (Will named the character actor of his company) "and proceeded to lay it over me on every possible occasion.... These damned women are always worse when they get along in life...."
"What did this 'club' woman expect of you?... What did she want?"
Will looked at me blankly, then batted his eyes....
"Why ... why, I suppose the old hen wanted me to make love to her: she made a play for me and I threw her down hard."
He took the clipping from my fingers and replaced it in his wallet.
"Did you know that the—the lady was coming to Cleveland?" I asked.
"Why—not exactly; she said something about it while we were still in Chicago but I thought she was bluffing. As a matter of fact I thought she had more sense than to do a thing like that."
"What led you to believe she had better sense?—anything in her past performances?"
"No—but women are pretty foxy: they generally take care to cover their trails no matter how reckless they pretend to be. Not many of them want to lose their homes in spite of their protestations about giving up everything for 'thou'...."