“Go on talking,” the actress invited languidly. “I love to hear you talk Montana! Don’t change your twang for this beastly English drawl, whatever you do.”
“You have, though, Miss Lane. I don’t hear a thing of Blairtown in the way you speak.”
And the girl said passionately: “I wish to God I spoke it right through! I wish I had never changed my speech or anything in me that was like home.”
And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: “Oh, do you mean that? Think how crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever go back to Montana, they will carry you from the cars in a triumphal chair through the town.”
She waited until she could control the emotion in her voice.
“Go on telling me about the little girl.”
“She was so trusting as to give the money up to me and I guess it will draw interest for her all right.”
“Thank you,” smiled the actress, “you are terribly sweet. The child got Higgins to let her into my dressing-room one day after a matinée. I haven’t time to see anybody except then.”
Here Higgins made her appearance in the room, with an egg-nog for her lady, which, after much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the actress to drink. Higgins also had taken away the flowers, and Letty Lane said to Dan:
“I send them to the hospital; they make me sick.” And Dan timidly asked: