"What's her name?"
"I don't know."
"Are you a Bolshevik?"
"I am an artist. I am interested in life. Bolshevism is a new phase of life. I must be interested in it."
"Do you want to play 'Hamlet'?"
"Why, I don't know—"
Again Lady Luck flew to my side. I was called to the telephone. I answered the one in my bedroom, and closed the door, and kept it closed. The Press departed. I felt like a wrung dish-rag. I looked into the mirror. I saw a Cheshire cat grinning back at me. I was still carrying the "prop" grin that I had invented for interviews. I wondered if it would be easier to hold it all the time rather than chase it into play at the sight of reporters. But some one might accuse me of imitating Doug. So I let the old face slip back to normal.
Doug came. Mary was better. She was with him. It was good to see her. The three of us went to the roof to be photographed. We were, in every conceivable pose until some one suggested that Doug should hang over the edge of the roof, holding Mary in one hand and me in the other. Pretty little thought. But that's as far as it got. I beat Doug to the refusal by a hair.
It's great to have friends like Doug and Mary. They understood me perfectly. They knew what the seven years' grind had meant to my nerves. They knew just how badly I needed this vacation, how I needed to get away from studios and pictures, how I needed to get away from myself.
Doug had thought it all out and had planned that while I was in New York my vacation should be perfect. He would see that things were kept pleasant for me.