The mirth in her eyes kindled a quick response in his. She laughingly jotted down the name of the Servian dancer who had lately kicked her way into fame on Broadway.
“But do you think,” he interposed, “that the call of the silver horn is likely to appeal to her? She’d need a jazz band!”
“Oh, variety is the spice of adventure! We’ll give her a chance,” she answered. “I think we have done well. One name more needs to be inscribed—that of Laurance Farrington.”
She lifted her hand quickly as he demurred.
“You need experiences—adventures—to tone up your imagination. Perhaps Zaliska will be your fate; but there’s always the unknown quantity.”
They debated this at length. He insisted that he would be able to contribute nothing to the affair; that it was his lack of ideas which had caused him to appeal to her for help, and that it would be best for him to act the role of interested spectator.
“I’m sorry, but your objections don’t impress me, Mr. Farrington. If you’re not in the game you won’t be able to watch it in all its details. So down you go!”
For a moment she pondered, with a wrinkling of her pretty brows, the memorandum before her; then she closed the book and dropped it into her sweater pocket. He was immensely interested in her next step, wondering whether she really meant to bring together the widely scattered and unrelated people she had selected for parts in the drama that was to be enacted for his benefit.
She rose so quickly that he was startled, gave a boyish tug at her hat—there was something rather boyish about her in spite of her girlishness—and said with an air of determination:
“How would Thursday strike you for the first rehearsal? Very well, then. There may be some difficulty in reaching all of them by telegraph; but that’s my trouble. Just where to hold the meeting is a delicate question. We should have”—she bent her head for an instant—“an empty house with large grounds; somewhere in these hills there must be such a place. You know the country better than I. Maybe——”