"Don't!" pleaded Mr. Farraday. It was all he could or was willing to plead at that moment.
"But I want to make good in this play for him and her—and you—before I go out of his life forever. I want to repay him with—with both money and happiness. He made me an artist." With these words Miss Hawtry made an acknowledgment of the truth that she herself really believed to be untrue, because she saw that to praise Mr. Vandeford was the best way to blind Mr. Farraday while she approached him in that blindness. She knew that his loyalty to his David would be a barrier unless she used it as a ladder.
"My God! How—how great women are!" was the immediate and hoped-for response she drew from the big Jonathan.
"My art must fill my life now. Only there will be—friendship. You make me see that by the comfort of your kindness." Miss Hawtry laid her flushed cheek in the hollow of good Dennis's big warm hand. The moment was tense, but Hawtry had timed her line a little too far ahead, and it failed to get across. The prey was as embarrassed as a girl and, with another brotherly pat, arose to go.
"You'll always let me do anything I can, won't you?" he asked as he looked down upon her for a second, then took a considerate departure.
"Boob!" muttered Hawtry to herself, as she rose and rang for Susette.
There are in this little old world many men like Dennis Farraday; only none of its inhabitants admit their existence.
After the evening of the introduction of its author to Broadway, things spun fast and furiously in the business of producing "The Purple Slipper," and during the whirlwind of the day Miss Adair sat either in her own private office or in the chair beside Mr. Vandeford, and reveled in the excitement, and in the evenings did other revelings. She had her evening with Mr. Height under the spell of Barrie and Maude Adams, and Mr. Vandeford swore under his breath when she reported to him that they had gone to the concert on the roof of the Waldorf for an hour, and had got back to her abiding-place in time not to need the latch-key, which still reposed in his pocket. He knew Gerald Height, and he was puzzled and alarmed at this wary approach.
Mrs. Farraday came to town, and the dinner-party in her staid, old Washington Square home, with himself and Miss Lindsey and Miss Adair as guests, was like a day's vacation for Mr. Vandeford. Also, he got a complete off-guard picture of Miss Adair as he would see her in Adairville, Kentucky, for she and the beautiful and stately Mrs. Farraday spoke the same language and had the same forms.
"My dear child, you positively must come up to Westchester for this week-end! Matilda Van Tyne is going to come for the first blooming of the rhododendrons in the West Marsh, and I feel sure that she must have known your mother in some of her visits to Lexington. She must see you and hear all about the play. Now, Dennis, make all the arrangements." Mrs. Farraday gave her commands as a queen is accustomed to deliver them.