“Wilson Crumb!” exclaimed Shannon. “What do you know of Wilson Crumb?”
“Oh, I’ve met him,” said Eva airily. “Don’t you envy me?”
“What do you know about him, Shannon?” asked Custer. “Your tone indicated that you may have heard something about him that wasn’t complimentary.”
“No—I don’t know him. It’s only what I’ve heard. I don’t think you’d like him.” Shannon almost shuddered at the thought of this dear child even so much as knowing Wilson Crumb. “Oh, Eva!” she cried impulsively. “You mustn’t even think of going into pictures. I lived in Los Angeles long enough to learn that the life is oftentimes a hard one, filled with disappointment, disillusionment, and regrets—principally regrets.”
“And Grace is there now,” said Custer in a low voice, a worried look in his eyes.
“Can’t you persuade her to return?”
He shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “She is trying to succeed, and we ought to encourage her. It is probably hard enough for her at best, without all of us suggesting antagonism to her ambition by constantly urging her to abandon it, so we try to keep our letters cheerful.”
“Have you been to see her since she left? No, I know you haven’t. If I were you, I’d run down to L. A. It might mean a lot to her, Custer; it might mean more than you can guess.”
The girl spoke from a full measure of bitter experience. She realized what it might have meant to her had there been some man like this to come to her when she had needed the strong arm of a clean love to drag her from the verge of the mire. She would have gone away with such a man—gone back home, and thanked God for the opportunity. If Grace loved Custer, and was encountering the malign forces that had arisen from their own corruption to claw at Shannon’s skirts, she would come back with him.