CHAPTER III
Now, by all rules of the game, it was the prerogative of Miss Violet Hawtry to take charge of a situation in which the star of a play meets the author; but she missed her cue, and the gutter instinct within her sat dumb and dumfounded before the lady from Adairville.
"I'm charmed to meet you, Miss Hawtry," Miss Adair assured her, with a glance of such admiration and friendliness that even Violet's narrow-gage soul expanded into a variety of graciousness all its own, and she smiled back into the eyes of the young author with a radiance that had the semblance of warmth.
"And this is Miss Lindsey, whom we have chosen to support you in our play, Miss Hawtry," Mr. Dennis Farraday continued, with a glance of respectful awe at the Hawtry, which matched that given her by the author a second before and obtained for Miss Lindsey a cordial enough recognition of the introduction only slightly to frappé her instead of freezing her entirely. "We are all hungry," he added after the change of civilities.
"You are all having luncheon with me," Mr. Vandeford found his voice to say. Ignoring Violet's glance of indignation at this skilful avoidance of a climax of her scene with him, he had three extra covers laid at the corner table devoted to the services of Miss Hawtry.
"I warned you that we were hungry, Van," said Mr. Farraday, as he began to search through the menu for an article of diet safe to pour in quantities into a girl who had long been empty. "How'd rare steak and fresh mushrooms do?" he asked, and he looked away from what he was sure would be in the eyes of Miss Lindsey, and which was there.
"Right-o, for you and Miss Lindsey, but what about nightingales' tongues for my author?" laughed Mr. Vandeford, with an interested note in his rich voice, which caused Miss Hawtry to look at him sharply and Miss Adair to repeat the blush to such a degree that Miss Hawtry, as Miss Lindsey before her, was forced to admit that it was native and not imported. The flush did not pass unnoticed by Mr. Vandeford, as he laughed again with a question as to her nourishing.
"I want something that I don't know what the name means," calmly returned Miss Adair, with delighted excitement at the thought of adventuring into a land of strange food. "I know steak and ham and eggs and chicken and turkey."