"You see I am an actress and most of my work has been on the road."
Paul Burton's face did not succeed in masking his surprise at the announcement.
"Have I shocked you again?" she demurely inquired.
"Shocked me, no." He disavowed with an almost confused haste. "I suppose I was surprised because the few actresses I have known have all been so unlike you."
"You mean," she amplified, "because I don't make up for the street?"
"I shouldn't have said that," he laughed, then added: "Now if you had told me you were playing truant from a young ladies' seminary, I would have found it quite natural. I saw you out front just before I began playing. Somehow the simple directness of your expression—I hoped it was anticipation—didn't seem to me characteristic of the stage. I fancied that professional people were usually chary of enthusiasm."
"There are at least several sorts of stage people, and they're not all gutter-children," she answered. "And then I haven't always been an actress. It was thrust upon me—by necessity."
"When I play," the man assured her, "the faces out front always grow vague to me. Tonight I saw yours when the others had gone. Then I lost yours, too. I hope I didn't disappoint you."
She shook her head. "No," she said, but to the simple negative she added nothing affirmative.
Paul Burton remained silent, half-piqued, and she, divining his thought, smiled quietly to herself at his petulance, but finally she spoke slowly and gravely: "You are an artist and until tonight you didn't know of my existence. Anything I might say would mean little to you."