He smiled good-naturedly.
“No, not my ruin, I have done very well, but I did want to be a great comedian, and I’ve never seen a comedian who did not secretly long for tragic rôles, but ‘there is a destiny that shapes our ends—’ What is that quotation?”
“‘Rough-hew them as we will,’” Ruth finished for him. “I quoted that myself to a girl last week and she answered me by saying that she intended to do a lot of rough-hewing.”
“Still, even if you do want to paint I think you ought to follow this newspaper thing up,” said Billie Irwin who was a bit vague as to the trend of the conversation. “Your name is in quite large type and nothing counts like keeping one’s name before the public. If only I had not been so retiring when I first started!”
Just here George came in with a letter which he laid beside Ruth’s plate.
“It just came by hand,” he explained.
Ruth lost no time in opening the large, square envelope, addressed in a precise, old-fashioned, masculine hand.
Inside was a square engraved card of admission to the private view of the water colour show at the Academy on Monday evening. With it was another card with the name Professor Percival Pendragon engraved on it, and the words “compliments of” written above.
“Oh, isn’t this splendid!” she exclaimed, passing the contents of the envelope to Gloria. “You know all of the students are crazy to go to the private view tomorrow night, but it’s awfully exclusive and only the members of the Academy and the exhibitors have cards, but each one is permitted one guest. Nels Zord, one of the student exhibitors is taking Dorothy Winslow and he’s asked this man, a friend and patron of his, to send me his guest card. Hasn’t he got a queer name? You know I’ve never met him at all. He must be really fond of Nels—quite an old chap I suppose and perhaps I’ll meet him at—”
Just then Ruth was stopped by the expression on Gloria’s face. She was holding the card away from her as if it were something dangerous and her face had grown quite pale, her big, blue eyes staring out with an expression that Ruth could not analyse.