"On that basis, yes," she said. Then she stopped and looked at him with a whimsical but favoring smile. "As it is, Teddy, what do you know of me to take even this chance?"
The opening was too direct. She saw it at once, and, to forestall his answer, said more lightly:
"It is a great service. Tell me what to write."
As she was drawing up the paper under his directions, a placid, emotionless woman of forty entered from the rear.
"That Mr. Hargrave is here, Nan dear," she said. "You gave him an appointment, you know."
"Mrs. Tilbury, my companion," said Miss Charters. "Very well; in a moment."
Mrs. Tilbury passed patiently out to deliver the message. Beecher was delighted with the correctness and cold respectability of such a chaperon.
"Mr. Hargrave is a young dramatist," said Miss Charters, finishing the document. "He's coming to read some masterpiece to me. He wrote a one-act piece three years ago that was very clever, and now, of course, I can't risk refusing to hear him—he might have a work of genius at last. This is my fourth trial." She put the paper from her impatiently. "I'm sorry."
He was displeased also at this sudden recall of the other life in her, the world of the theater, which crowded the walls with its signed photographs.
"I'll telephone as soon as I know," he said, dissembling his irritation.