"Alice North?"
Apparently he had not the slightest idea who Alice North might be.
"Yes—Alice North—the novelist, Ted!"
"Is she anybody special—anything of a celebrity?"
"Is she? Oh, Ted, you must read something besides newspapers! Mrs. North hasn't been made a celebrity by the papers—somehow she's managed to keep clear of cheap notoriety—but there's scarcely a woman writing to-day whose work is better than hers. She is really—really—distinguished!"
Instantly he was "on the job," as he would have expressed it, at that revelation: "Well, she won't keep out of the 'Star'! I'll have a story about her to-morrow. Confound it! I wish I'd known to-day! But the Davises never let me know anything. I found out by accident that Charlotte was home. And such a time as I had getting her photograph. I don't believe that family care about their own town's paper!"
Sheila smiled. She had a pretty accurate conception of the place that Shadyville must occupy on Charlotte's horizon—and on Alice North's. But she only remarked soothingly, "I can tell you all about Alice North. I've read nearly everything she's written, and a number of magazine articles about her, too. I'll get you up a good story about her—the sort of story she won't object to either." Then her enthusiasm swept her from the subject of newspaper values to the true value of Mrs. North:
"Oh, Ted, isn't it splendid for a woman to have a talent like that—a talent that's made her famous at thirty!"
But there was no responsive enthusiasm in Ted's face, no leap of light in the eyes that met the fire of hers. "I suppose so," he conceded grudgingly, "yes, I suppose it is. But I don't care for that sort of woman myself—at least for that sort of married woman."
"But why, Ted? Why? Her work doesn't interfere with her loving her husband!"