"It is such a little thing I ask," she pouted, "I'm sure you would if you loved me."
The girl's eyes were filling. She had found him easy to handle by that appeal only a few short months before, but now, as he saw her, he was seized with a desire to laugh, as he realized that she was acting. The words of Swanson: "You'll find out more than we will," flashed into his mind, and he determined to meet acting with acting.
"Perhaps, Helen," he said softly, "if you could explain just why you want me to quit playing I could see my way to do it."
"That is being a sensible boy," she said, bathing her eyes with a bit of lace. "I don't like to see you making an exhibition of yourself before a crowd—for money." She shrugged her beautiful shoulders disdainfully.
"Is that all?" he asked quietly.
"All? Isn't it enough? And then there's Mr. Lawrence. I know he is worrying about you."
"Any other reasons?" he inquired.
"Then there's Uncle Barney"——
"What has Barney Baldwin to do with it?" His voice was sharp, and the girl hesitated under his steady scrutiny.
"You mustn't speak that way of my uncle," she said reprovingly. "I'm sure he's only interested in you because of me. He says it is imperative that you do not play any more with the Bears."