Joan laughed.
"Sid," she said, "you're a dear, blessed fibber and we want you with us."
Her poise and adaptability were startling. Her simplicity won them all. To the girls who lived in Ann's studio building she seemed all laughter and happiness and breathless eagerness to please.
"She's just herself," said Peggy Jarvis, who lived with Ann and smiled over the footlights each night in comedy that was comedy and to crowds that were crowds, "She doesn't know that half the world is posing."
Joan spent an afternoon in Peggy's dressing room during a matinee and came home with moist, excited eyes.
"Think, Peggy, think!" she exclaimed. "Once long ago that was my mother's life."
Peggy kissed her and rummaged for cigarettes. Joan's eyes rested upon her pretty face with troubled indulgence.
"Oh, Peggy," she pouted. "Why do you smoke?"
"Because," said Peggy honestly, "I like it. Does it shock you, dear?"
"It did at first," admitted Joan. "And even now I shouldn't care to smoke myself. But then when that old painter Kenny likes so came here with his wife, and her hair was so white and her face so kind, and she smoked like a chimney—"