“And when was the last time,” she asked, “that you felt you cared a little for any one?”
“It dates from the day before yesterday,” he declared, filling her glass.
She laughed at him.
“Of course, it is nonsense to talk to you like this!” she said. “You are quite right to make fun of me.”
“On the contrary,” he insisted. “I am very much in earnest.”
“Very well, then,” she answered, “if you are in earnest you shall be in love with me. You shall take me about, give me supper every night, send me some sweets and cigarettes to the theatre—oh, and there are heaps of things you ought to do if you really mean it!” she wound up.
“If those things mean being fond of you,” he answered, “I’ll prove it with pleasure. Sweets, cigarettes, suppers, taxicabs at the stage-door.”
“It all sounds very terrible,” she sighed. “It’s a horrid little life.”
“Yet I suppose you enjoy it?” he remarked tentatively.
“I hate it, but I must do something. I could not live on charity. If I knew any other way I could make money, I would rather, but there is no other way. I tried once to give music lessons. I had a few pupils, but they never paid—they never do pay.