While the three walked across the narrow street Mr. Vandeford made some rapid calculations and a decision in his mind. He saw plainly that he could not undertake to guard Mr. Dennis Farraday from the Violet and at the same time fend Miss Patricia Adair from her wiles. He'd have to choose between them, and in the twinkling of an eye he chose Patricia. It is said that there is a love between men "that passes the love of women," but nobody has ever witnessed it.
"You people go on to your show—I'm all in," he capitulated as they stood beside Mr. Farraday's car; and the heart of the Violet rejoiced within her.
"I'm sure Miss Adair is getting caught up on sleep so she can go with you to-morrow night. She's a perfect dear, and we'll put her play across," Hawtry cooed to him in her rich voice, and he knew that she felt she had struck his price and bought him off.
"If Denny falls for her he'll fall far; but I can't help it. A girl's a girl, specially from the country," Mr. Vandeford said to himself, as he stood and watched them drive away into the white-lighted cañon of Broadway. Then he went home and to bed.
A man may put out his night light, stretch himself between his sheets with the perfection of fatigue and still not sleep. There are various combinations of reasons that prevent his slumber. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford was still awake when Mr. Dennis Farraday let himself into his apartment with a key that had been presented to him five years before when Mr. Vandeford had installed his Lares and Penates in the tall building on Seventy-third Street, some of these Lares and Penates being Mr. Farraday's extra linen and clothes.
"That you, Denny?" Mr. Vandeford asked as he switched on his light and took a hurried glance at a clock on his mantel which registered the hour of 2 a. m.
"Yes," answered Mr. Farraday, as he came to the door of Mr. Vandeford's sleeping apartment. "A thought suddenly struck me, and I stopped in to explode it at you and sleep here."
"Fire away!"
"My mater is coming to town the first of the week to have her glasses changed, and [I'm] going to telephone out to her to-morrow and ask her to write Miss Adair to have dinner with us informally at the town house while she is here. You know mater's mother was from old Kentucky, and she'll adore the child. Think that's good thinking?"
"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a glow under his ribs about which he said nothing. Men are vastly inarticulate, but they have various means of communication, and Mr. Vandeford now felt that in his care of his author Mr. Dennis Farraday would understand.