“It’s always worth while, son, to watch Loveman improve each midnight hour. See how he smiles and talks—and yet, God, how he’s working! But you’re here, son, because of Father Morton; and also, perhaps, to see if Nina’s bee buzzes. How about splitting fifty-fifty on a ham sandwich?”
As the two ate the best supper Uncle George could order, Clifford kept his eyes on Loveman’s party. They were now leaving the table in couples to dance. Nina Cordova, a slender blonde with a soft, appealing face and quick, bright eye, was with Jack Morton; dancing was something they both did well; and it was easy to see that the slender prima donna had more than a dancing interest in her partner. Then Loveman danced with her; and in the middle of the dance they halted beside Clifford’s table.
“Finish this with me, Uncle George,” coaxed the little star.
“My dear child,” returned the old man, “if you’d spoken to me a little earlier, say bout 1871, I’d have danced with you till that orchestra dropped dead. But now, why, I’d just fall apart on the floor. Ask Clifford there.”
She smiled at Clifford and the next moment he was fox-trotting with her. She was certainly a marvel of a dancer; also, beneath her ingénue surface, she had a keen brain of her own sort; and in her light chatter as they swung about he sensed that she was trying to search his mind—and he sensed also that she was doing this at the instigation of Loveman. But he parried so well that he believed she did not even know he was fencing.
“Clever girl, Uncle George,” he said when he was back at his table.
“Son, you said something then,” affirmed the old man. “Unless my hunch works wrong you’ll some day find her mixed up in this affair; and when you do meet up with her, son, you’d better forget that, according to the date written down in her press-agent’s Bible, that dear little child is only twenty-one.”
Clifford looked over at her thoughtfully. She danced half a dozen dances with Jack Morton; and Clifford, watching everything, guessed that the elder Morton was none too pleased. And then she danced again with Loveman; and he saw that she was talking imperiously to the little lawyer; and if only he could have overheard he might have given more weight to Uncle George’s prediction that Nina Cordova was to play some considerable part before the final curtain fell.
“Peter,” she was saying, “since ‘Orange Blossoms’ is such a fizzle, I’m going to quit the show business, and marry some nice young man.”
“But, my child, your art!” protested Loveman.