They both spoke together.
“It isn’t very complimentary to show such astonishment,” remarked Phœbe. “I’ve me charms yet, I fancy. Yes, two. One comes along, a sea-farin’ man, and says, ‘Choose!’ says he; ‘choose between me and a quart of bad whisky,’ says he. It was a hard problem, savin’ your presence, Jerry; an’ I couldn’t decide as quickly as the sea-farin’ gentleman wished. Besides, I was confused by the attentions of the other gentleman, a movie actor, who had come along in the mornin’.”
“A movie actor!”
“An’ why not?” she demanded. “It’s gettin’ to be one of the hazardous callin’s, demandin’ courage and daring. He plagued me so with verses——”
“It was Jawn!” cried Richard.
“Jawn it was,” agreed Phœbe. “He told me outright to my face—I like a man to speak the truth—that he had been disappointed in love some seventy or eighty times, but that now he had discovered that all his excitin’ past was just preliminary training to get him ready and fit for me. But he took me best of all by his main argument. He said that he had just finished a fine weddin’ hymn, an’ that it was a shame to waste it. To be sure, he admitted that he had writ it for a lady who had gone off with another fellow; but with a slight change here and there, which would not spoil the rhyme and metre at all, he found it would just do for me. An’ then he read it to me.... It was very seducin’ verse, very seducin’!”
Phœbe was a natural actress. She had the one quality essential to all great players, the subtle voice tones which compel an audience to take the contagion of her mood. In one deft speech she had removed the awkwardness from the atmosphere and had substituted ease and friendliness. Jerry and Richard chatted and chaffed in total forgetfulness of their strained relationship. It was a wonderful dramatic achievement.
“Phœbe, you cannot mean to marry Walter?” Jerry asked abruptly. “The thing fills me with horror. Why, he is six years younger! We cannot let you sacrifice yourself like that. You are not really going to do it, are you?”
“No,” said Phœbe quietly. “I am not. I thought at first that I could do it. It’s no worse than nursing or school-teachering, and a woman must have some sort of occupation nowadays.” As she spoke she felt a momentary shame for her flippancy; but she went on, true to her instinct to hide the good in her, and even to deny it if too closely prodded. “The job was too much for Saint Phœbe.”
“But have you told Walter? Aren’t you afraid he’ll——”