Tab also saw the car depart. He grinned at himself for his whimsical and freakish act. If anybody had told him that he would wait at a stage-door for the pleasure of catching a glimpse of a popular actress, he would have been rude. Yet, here he was, a furtive and abashed man, so ashamed of his weakness that he must look upon her from the darkest corner of the street!
“Well, well,” said Tab, with a sigh. “We live and we learn.”
His flat was in Doughty Street, and stopping only to telephone the result of his interview, he made his way home.
As he came into the sitting-room a man some two years his junior looked up over the top of the arm-chair in which he was huddled.
“Well?” he asked eagerly.
Tab went to a large tobacco jar and filled his polished briar before he spoke.
“Is it true?” asked Rex Lander, impatiently. “What a mysterious brute you are!”
“Rex, you’re related to the Canards of Duckville,” said the other, puffing solemnly. “You’re a spreader of false tidings and a creator of alarm and despondency amongst the stage-door lizards—whose ancient fraternity I have this night joined, thanks to you.”
Rex relaxed his strained body into a more easy and even less graceful posture.
“Then she isn’t going to be married?” he said, with a sigh.