She didn't answer me, of course. She merely hurried faster down the hall, and turned the next corner.
When I realised what I had done I felt like butting my silly head through one of the glass partitions that lined the corridor. I called myself all the names in my vocabulary. I clean forgot my own errand in the building, and went back to my office muttering to myself in the streets like a lunatic.
I was glad no one dropped in. In my mind I went over the scene of the meeting a hundred times I suppose, and made up what I ought to have said and done, more ridiculous I expect than what had happened. What bothered me was that she would think I was just a common fresh guy. I couldn't rest under that. So I started to write her a note. I wrote half a dozen and tore them up. The one I sent ran like this:—I blush to think of it now—
MISS IRMA HAMERTON,
DEAR MADAM:
The undersigned met you in the corridor of the Manhattan Theatre Building this afternoon about three. You seemed to be in distress, and I was so surprised I forgot myself and addressed you. I beg that you will accept my apology for the seeming rudeness. I have seen you in all your plays, many of them several times over, and I have received so much pleasure from your acting, and I respect you so highly that it is very painful to me to think that I may have added to your distress by my rudeness. I assure you that it was only clumsiness, and not intentional rudeness.
Yours respectfully,
B. ENDERBY.
The instant after I had posted this letter I would have given half I possessed to get it back again. It suddenly occurred to me that it would only make matters worse. Either it would seem like an impertinent attempt to pry into her private affairs, or a bold move to follow up my original rudeness. A real gentleman would not have said anything about the tears, I told myself. My cheeks got hot, but it was too late to recall the letter. I was thoroughly miserable. I did not tell any of my friends what had happened.
That night I went alone to see her play. Lost in her part of course and hidden under her makeup she betrayed nothing. There was always a suggestion of sadness about her, even in comedy. When that lovely deep voice trembled, a corresponding shiver went up and down your spine.
I thought about her all the way home. My detective instinct was aroused. I tried to figure out what could be her trouble. There are only four kinds of really desperate trouble: ill-health, death, loss of money, and unrequited love. To look at her in the daylight without make-up was enough to dispose of the first. It was said that she had no close relatives, therefore she couldn't have lost any recently. As for money, surely with her earning capacity she had no need to trouble about that. Finally, how could it be an affair of the heart? Was there a man alive who would not have cast himself at her feet if she had turned a warm glance in his direction? Rich, successful and adored as she was, I had to give it up.