"And you put up with it—you go about with them?" I was astonished at the welling up of disgust in me. Sarah felt for my hand and held it.
"My dear, in our business you have to learn to take no notice. It is not that these things are so much worse with actors, but it is more difficult to keep them covered up. You must know that a great many people do such things."
"I know—wicked people. I never thought of its being done by anybody you liked."
"Oh, yes;" she was perfectly simple. "You can like them, you can like them greatly." I remembered that I oughtn't to have said that to Sarah Croyden.
"You mustn't think Mr. O'Farrell such a bad man. He is probably fond of her. In some respects he is a very good man. When I was—left, without a penny, he might have made terms with me. Some managers would. But he gave me a living salary and left me to myself. He has been very kind to me."
"But she——" I choked back my sick resentment to get at what had been tearing its way through my consciousness for the last three hours. "She must have thought that that was what I wanted of him...."
"Well, it is natural she should be anxious, with other women about. She is in love with him."
"Did you think so? About me, I mean?"
"No," said Sarah. "No, I didn't think so."
It was light enough now to show the outline of the drifts along the sills and the fine gritty powder which the wind dashed intermittently against the panes; the filter of day under the scant blinds brought out in the affair streaks of vulgarity as evident as the pattern of the paper on the wall. It seemed to borrow cheapness from the broken castor of the bureau, as from my recollection of the eaten face of the clock and the leaning chandelier. I sat up in the bed and laid hold of Sarah in my eagerness to get clear of what by my mere knowledge of it, seemed an unbearable complicity.