"Yes," she said, and managed to go on a little more naturally, "Mr. Craig took me. We had a bet on what the Supreme Court's decision would be in the Roderick case—theater tickets against two pounds of home-made fudge, and I won. And—that's where we went."
"And you didn't like it, eh?"
"No," she said.
By now he was grinning at her outright. "Vulgar?" he asked.
Her color had mounted again. "Yes," she said.
The notion of having his dramatic entertainment censored by a frail, prim little thing like Miss Beach tickled his burly sense of humor. "It would be a horrible thing if I should go to see anything vulgar, wouldn't it?" he observed. "But I think I'll take a chance. You go ahead and telephone."
At that she rose and, for the first time, faced him. To his amazement, he saw that she was in a perfect panic of embarrassment and fright. But, for some grotesque reason, she was determined, too. She was blushing up to the hair and her lips were trembling.
"Mr. Aldrich," she said, "you won't like that show. If—if you go, you'll be sorry."
While he was still staring at her, young Craig came bursting blithely out of his office, a bundle of papers in his hand and the pucker of a silent whistle still on his lips. "Oh, Miss Beach!" he said, and then stopped short, seeing that something had happened.
Rodney tried an experiment. "Craig," he said, "Miss Beach doesn't want me to buy a ticket for The Girl Up-stairs. She says I won't like it. Do you agree with her?"