"Rather expected another proposition?" he said bluntly.
"Yes, I did! Good heavens! Blainey, why do you want to marry me?"
"For about six hundred and fifty-two reasons!" he said solemnly. "First, because I'm fond of you. Second, because I'm lonely, kid! Third, because I'd like to work for you, make something big out of you, give you a career that would be a career. The rest don't count! You see, kid, I believe in you, and the contract I'm offering you," he added, with a sudden chuckling return to playfulness, "is the only contract I know that's worth a damn between manager and star. Of course, you've got to work!"
"Blainey, how much talent have I?" she asked passionately. "No compliments! Give me the truth! It may mean a lot!"
"I don't know!"
"And yet—"
"Talent be damned!" he said royally, as he said a dozen times a day. "Art be damned! It ain't talent, it's personality that counts—personality and advertising. Personality, kid, is the reason we build the stage three feet above the orchestra, to keep the bald heads from coming over. Do you think I'm in this God-forsaken business thirty-four years, and don't know the tricks? You'll be talking art to me next!"
"And I have personality?" she said doubtfully.
He smiled hugely.
"Would you be sitting here if you hadn't?"