“Certainly not. What makes you ask that?”
“Because I heard that new star with the doll face, Bennie Burnside, say that you were a gay Lothario.”
“Bennie Burnside,” said Compton severely, “on the outside is a fine figure of a man from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. On the inside he is absolutely perfect up to and including his neck. He is a matinee idol.”
“But, uncle, what is a gay Lothario?”
“It is said of the kind of fool who is soon parted from his money; it means a man whose most earnest endeavor is to make an ass of himself.”
“But you’re not a fool, uncle.”
“Thank you, Bobby. I will try to believe you. Anyhow, I may be a fool now, but I am not the forty-three varieties of fool I once was.”
Indeed, so great a change had come upon John Compton since the arrival of Bobby that all the world—the moving-picture world, at any rate—wondered. Nothing could persuade him to leave his quarters at night. The dance knew him no more; the hotel lobby, whither a certain set of foolishly joyous moving-picture men most did congregate, missed him from his accustomed place. A local magistrate wondered what had become of him. He had not been fined for speeding in five weeks. In a word, John Compton had suddenly abandoned his mad quest of pleasure, and, having abandoned the quest, was cheerier, happier than he had been since attaining his majority. Compton was known to be a man of more than ordinary intellect. His friends had for years expected great things of him. In college days he had given promise of developing into a writer of taste and imagination. But he had so far disappointed these high expectations. His pen had been barren, his life had been strewn with good intentions—till Bobby came.
And now it was so different. He had written a scenario, “Imitation,” which was new in matter, touching in treatment, and which, in the opinion of the Lantry Studio critics, gave promise to set a high mark for other scenario writers. He was already busy upon a second play. Bobby was almost his sole companion in these days, Bobby and Father Mallory, for whom he had conceived a strong liking, and whom he visited regularly every afternoon.
As the two made their way to an office where the reporter was cooling his heels there came swooping upon them, dressed for their respective parts, Peggy and Francis and Pearl.