"Not now! Besides, when I get ready, you're going to place me in a good stock company first. Look out, Blainey," she added, laughing; "if I turn serious, it'll be frightful!"
He began, delighted, to sketch for her the course she should take, seeking to convince her of her talents, unfolding to her the methods he would employ. She kept her eyes on his, but she did not hear a word. The feeling of the place possessed her; she could not shake it off. She felt already caught.
In reality, her reckless assumption of this part was simply a trying out of herself, an attempt to project herself into the future, to explore with the eye where the feet must tread. Not that a career was within her serious intentions. She retreated from coarseness, drawing her delicate skirts about her; yet it amused her thus to dramatize herself! So, while one Dodo was audaciously playing at acting, another Dodo was coldly placing questions before herself.
"Would it be possible? Could I ever? Would it be worth while? And Blainey—what would that mean?"
Then, as he turned in the glare from the window, she noticed his vest. It was a brown upholstered vest with purple sofa buttons. Her reverie centered on those buttons, counting them, running them up and down; and a curious idea came to her. If by any chance she should go on with a career, she certainly would have to make him change that vest!
The idea of a manager, a manager devoted to her, wearing a brown upholstered vest with purple sofa buttons, offended her horribly—more than other possibilities which did not stare her in the face. When she went off with Massingale, after the second act, for a hasty bite, he said to her:
"Why so solemn?"
She was still counting over that double line of purple sofa buttons.