Nevertheless, he could not calm himself. He started nervously at the sound of the telephone-bell down in the dining-room.
Responding, he heard Thornburg’s voice at the other end of the wire.
“Is this Baron? Say, can you come down to my office right away?” The manager’s voice betrayed excitement, Baron thought. Or was he himself in an abnormal frame of mind?
“Yes, certainly,” he replied. He added: “Anything wrong?”
“Why—no; no, I think not. I’ll tell you when you get here.”
Something was wrong, however—Baron could see it the moment he entered the manager’s office, half an hour later.
He had to wait a little while for an audience. Thornburg was talking to an actress—or to a woman who had the appearance of an actress. She sat with her back toward the office door and did not turn. But Thornburg, upon Baron’s entrance, made a very obvious effort to bring the interview with this earlier caller to an end. He seemed vastly uncomfortable.
“What you ought to do is to get a stock engagement somewhere,” Thornburg was saying impatiently. “I might possibly get you in with Abramson, out in San Francisco. He wrote me the other day about a utility woman. I’ll look up his letter and see if there’s anything in it. You might come back.”
He arose with decision, fairly lifting the woman to her feet by the force of peremptory example. “About that other matter—” he moved toward the door, clearly intimating that he wished to finish what he had to say outside the office.
The woman followed; but in passing Baron she paused, and her eyes rested upon him sharply. There was a suggestion of suspicion in her manner, in her glance, and Baron had the vexing sensation of having seen her before without being able to identify her. A furrow appeared in his forehead. He made a determined effort to remember. No, he couldn’t place her. She might be an actress he had seen on the stage somewhere or other.