Baggot read his thought accurately. “I wanted to give you the surprise of your life! You can’t help being pleased?”
“Pleased! Certainly! But we’ve been distressed about her.”
“Oh—distressed! Well, she belongs to the theatre. She always has. I saw that right away!”
“But if we’d only known! I don’t suppose we could have stood in the way.”
“But it was her idea—at first. She didn’t want you to know. I mean when we put the piece on here for a try-out—at first.”
“You don’t mean——”
“Of course! It was when you were laid up. I thought she’d lay down on me, because you wouldn’t see her that night. And then came the Chicago engagement. I took my mother along to look after her. I didn’t know she hadn’t told you anything for a time, and then I left it to her to do what she wanted to do. It was always her idea to take you by surprise. I think she cared more for that than for anything else. Great goodness, man, you don’t imagine you’ve been treated badly?”
Baron’s glance became inscrutable.
“Why, just think of it!” Baggot went on. “She’s drawing the salary of a regular star. And her reputation is made.”
Baron turned away almost curtly. What was to be gained by discussing Bonnie May with a creature who could only think of salary and reputation—to whom she was merely a puppet, skilled in repeating lines of some one else’s fashioning?