“Mr. Kent, we’re such a bunch of rubes—I thought you might recommend the best show in town for to-morrow night.”
Naomi waited as Marshy considered.
“Why don’t you send your friend to ours?” she suggested in a low voice apparently to him alone.
“What one is that?” asked the friend, flashing eagerly into the breach.
Kent introduced him then to the upraised eyes round the table. But he saw only Naomi’s veiled ones. She gave him the name of the musical comedy and the theater—nothing more. And as he bowed and rejoined the older man and the girl with the dusky hair standing in the doorway, Marshall Kent dropped into his chair again.
“Quick work, Naomi,” he murmured, “and Machiavellian method! One more move from you and the apple wouldn’t have looked nearly so inviting.”
[137]
]CHAPTER II
My dear Miss Stokes,
This will be the fourth time I’ve seen the show and the third time I’ve asked you to go to supper. If you tell me you can’t again, I’ll think you don’t want to—and quit. No, on the whole, I won’t quit. I’ve never done that in my life. I’ll just hang round and bother you till you come, so better come to-night. I’ll be waiting for you.
Sincerely,
William Dixon.
Naomi lifted the head-dress of paradise that swayed round her face and handed it absently to the dresser, still concentrating on the note which had been delivered at the theater by special messenger.
“Sincerely, William Dixon.” Numberless notes she had received during her show girl career, but never one signed just like that. “Sincerely.” Probably it was a card index of the man.