Terry and Ruth, returning very late from supper after the theatre, would sometimes find her sitting in semi-darkness, while the Prince sang to her, but in such brief glimpses there was no chance for intimate conversation between the two women. Alone with Terry at the theatre or in some restaurant, Ruth almost forgot the shadow hanging over the house on Gramercy Park. Terry was so gay and amusing, so healthful and normal in his outlook, and wherever they went they met his friends, until Ruth began to feel like a personage. It was all very pleasant. Late hours had forced her to appear less and less often at the morning class, but she was always at the League in the afternoon and she began to wonder whether she would not give it up altogether as soon as she actually began her work for the Express. She had tried to tell Terry about her talk with George; but a few hours away from George and his snake worship and the sight of George in his rôle of servant had restored what Terry called his mental balance, and he no longer regarded him as dangerous. He was beginning to be a bit ashamed of even listening to Ruth’s fears.
“It’s only natural that you should be nervous—that we should both have been a bit impressed, it was so weird and unexpected, but after all George is just a servant, and the snake is probably a harmless reptile, such as one sees in any circus. I do not think that he is a bad servant and that he does not regard Gloria as a servant should; he’s impertinent and disagreeable, if you like, but I don’t believe he has the slightest thing to do with Professor Pendragon’s illness. How could he?”
He talked thus until Ruth despaired of securing his assistance. Terry had given Gloria a contract to sign, which she persistently refused to consider. Finally he appealed to Ruth about it.
“Can’t you make Gloria sign it?” he said. “She seemed keen enough before we found a producer and before the thing was cast, and now that she has the contract before her, she seems to have lost all interest. I can’t imagine what’s wrong. Of course temperament covers a multitude of sins, but she never was temperamental about her work.”
“Perhaps she’s decided to really abandon the stage,” said Ruth.
They were having supper together—Ruth didn’t know where. One of the delightful things about Terry was that he never asked her where she wanted to go. He didn’t even tell her where they were going. He just took her.
Terry looked at her in amazement. “Leave the stage?”
“Did it ever occur to you that Gloria might marry Prince Aglipogue?” she asked.
Terry answered with a laugh:
“My dear child, you’ve thought so much about Gloria and George that you’re beginning to think of impossibilities. Gloria wouldn’t marry a man like that, and if she did she’d have to stay on the stage to support him. The house, of course, belongs to her, but the income from her other husband—I forget his name—would certainly stop if she remarried.”