As I climbed the creaking stairs again, I was pondering the question of contentment. Here were three of us. One had raked success out of the fire of failure and had written what promised to be the season's dramatic sensation. One had earned the right to read her name, nightly, in Broadway's incandescent roster. I myself had been preserved from cannibal flesh-pots. All of us were seemingly brands snatched from the burning, and all of us were deeply miserable. I wondered if the fourth was happy; the woman who had once said to Maxwell the things he now vainly longed to hear? And She—the lady I had never seen; what of her?
I found the author gazing off with a far-away reminiscence which was mostly pain. The taxi' was whirring under the arch, but he had already forgotten it and its occupant.
"Do you want to unbosom yourself, Bobby?" I questioned.
He shook his head.
"To you?" he inquired with a smile. "You're a woman-hater."
But a moment later he came over and laid his hand affectionately on my shoulder, fearing he had offended me.
"I guess, old man," he explained, "there's no balm in post-mortems. I loved her, that's all, and I still do."
"She married?" I inquired.
"She is now Mrs. William Clay Weighborne of Lexington. It's a prettier name than Fanny Maxwell, and looks better on a check. I was number three, that's all."
"Mrs. Who?" I repeated, in astonishment. "You don't mean the wife of W. C. Weighborne?"