"Nothing can stop that kind; they don't always know it, but that's what draws them to the stage in the first place. It's a kind of what-do-you-call-it, going back to the thing they were a long time ago."
"Atavism," I supplied; I thought it very likely. All the centuries of bringing women up to be toys must have had its fruit somehow. Cecelia was made to be played with; she wasn't serviceable for anything else. And what was more, I didn't care to be identified with her even in the Christian attitude of a rescuer. I said as much to Sarah one evening about a week later, when I had gone with Jerry to give my opinion of some changes in the cast, preparatory to going on the road with his play, and in the overflow of his satisfaction at the way the audience rose to them, he had asked me to go to supper with him. Then as Sarah joined us and the spirit of the crowd caught him, pouring along the street, bright almost as by day and with the added brightness of evening garments, Jerry, always open to the infection of the holiday mood, proposed that for once we stretch a point by going to supper at Reeves's. Sarah and I demurred as women will at such a proposal from a man whose family exigencies are known to them, but Sarah found a prohibitory objection in a promise she professed to have made, to go around for Cecelia on her way home, which Jerry promptly quashed by including her in the invitation. I protested.
"Supper at Reeves's is quite enough of an adventure for one time. Cecelia paints."
"Not really," Sarah protested. "It's only that she uses so little make-up that she doesn't think it necessary to take it off."
"All the better," insisted Jerry. "I never did take supper at Reeves's with a painted lady, and I'm told it is quite one of the things to do."
I let it pass rather than spoil his high mood. It was not more than three blocks to the Varieté, and at the stage door Sarah insisted on getting out herself.
"Why did you let her?" I protested to Jerry.
"Because it will please her, and Miss Brune will be gone; Sarah doesn't realize how late we are." I could see her returning through the fogged glass of the stage door.
"Cecelia's gone! The man said she was going to Reeves's too; we can pick her up there."
"Oh," I objected, "I can stand Cecelia, but I draw the line at her gentleman friends. She didn't go there alone, I fancy."