"I don't know."
"I wouldn't count on it, if I were you. . . . You're so sensitive that I've hesitated to say anything. But I think that chap was looking for trouble, and when he found you were already engaged, why, he made up his mind to drop it."
"Do you think so?" said Susan indifferently. "More coffee?"
"Yes—a little. If my play's as good as your coffee——
That's enough, thanks. . . . Do you still draw your—your——"
His tone as he cast about for a fit word made her flush scarlet. "No—I stopped it until we begin work again."
He did not conceal his thorough satisfaction. "That's right!" he cried. "The only cloud on our happiness is gone. You know, a man doesn't like that sort of thing."
"I know," said Susan drily.
And she understood why that very night he for the first time asked her to supper after the rehearsal with Sperry and Constance Francklyn, the leading lady, with whom he was having one of those affairs which as he declared to Sperry were "absolutely necessary to a man of genius to keep him freshened up—to keep the fire burning brightly." He had carefully coached Miss Francklyn to play the part of unsuspected "understudy"—Susan saw that before they had been seated in Jack's ten minutes. And she also saw that he was himself resolved to conduct himself "like a gentleman." But after he had taken two or three highballs, Susan was forced to engage deeply in conversation with the exasperated and alarmed Sperry to avoid seeing how madly Rod and Constance were flirting. She, however, did contrive to see nothing—at least, the other three were convinced that she had not seen. When they were back in their rooms, Rod—whether through pretense or through sidetracked amorousness or from simple intoxication—became more demonstrative than he had been for a long time.
"No, there's nobody like you," he declared. "Even if I wandered I'd always come back to you."
"Really?" said Susan with careless irony. "That's good. No,
I can unhook my blouse."