It was a photograph of a girl.
The face was round and childlike, and was possessed of that peculiar innocent sweetness which seems to belong only to a particular type of blonde whose beauty almost invariably hardens in maturity.
At the time of the portrait, Abbershaw judged, the girl must have been about seventeen – possibly less. Undeniably lovely, but in the golden-haired unsophisticated fashion of the medieval angel.
The last face in the world that he would have suspected Wyatt of noticing.
He turned the thing over in his hand. It was one of those cheap, glossy reproductions which circulate by the thousand in the theatrical profession.
He sat looking at it helplessly; uncomprehending, and very much at sea.
Wyatt came to the rescue.
‘Her stage name was “Joy Love”,’ he said slowly, and there was silence again.
Abbershaw was still utterly perplexed, and opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but the other man interrupted him, and the depth and bitterness of his tone surprised the doctor.
‘Her real name was Dolly Lord,’ he said. ‘She was seventeen in that photograph, and I loved her – I do still love her – most truly and most deeply.’ He added simply, ‘I have never loved any other woman.’