CHAPTER XVIII
It was an epoch-making afternoon for Jacqueline, and not the least part of the enchantment was her first experience of automobiling. The wheezing, coughing little equipage known to Professor Thorpe's friends as the Ark had induced in her the belief that automobiles were a very poor substitute for horses, and she scorned to enter it. But this powerful, silent car of Farwell's, capable of such incredible speed and yet controlled by a lever or a button quite as easily as she herself could have handled a horse—it gave her the feeling that she was riding a tamed whirlwind.
"Nice car, isn't it? I like it best of all Farwell's machines. It is to be mine while I'm here," said Channing.
"Do you mean to say Mr. Farwell owns more than one of them?" asked Jacqueline, awed. "How in the world did he ever get to be so rich? He's an artist, isn't he? And I thought artists were never rich."
"It depends upon the kind of art. Farwell gives the people what they want, which always pays."
"He must sell a lot of pictures to buy a machine like this!"
"Pictures!" He turned and stared at her. "Why, I don't believe you know who he is!" He chuckled. "What a blow for Morty! I must tell him that there's actually a girl in America who doesn't recognise him on sight. He is the Farwell—Mortimer Farwell himself, my dear."
Jacqueline looked blank.
"What, never even heard of him? Mortimer Farwell is—or was—the most popular matinée idol on the stage. He's resting on his laurels at present, but I don't think he will rest long. Between you and me, he misses the footlights."
"On the stage! You mean he's an actor? And I'm going to his house! What will Jemmy say when she hears of this?" Jacqueline looked rather alarmed.