“You said it,” agreed Cleeburg. “Make a business of acting and you make a failure.”
“Lord,” laughed Brooks, “here I am telling Gloria something she knows instinctively. Never saw a woman so charged with the power to make people feel.” He stopped abruptly.
Gloria had been gazing into her glass as if into a crystal. She set it down and the next words came as though she did not want to say them.
“If that’s so—I guess you’re right. I do live every thought and emotion of every part I play. I suppose that’s why they call us temperamental.” Her full sensitive lips curved in a half-smile. “You don’t need [190] ]temperament to sell stocks and bonds or argue a case in court.”
“I beg your pardon,” corrected Brooks. “A lawyer often has to be a darned fine actor. I know, because I started out to be one.”
“What’s that?” grinned his host.
“Fact! I haven’t made it generally known. It’s too funny even to make a good press story. But I was admitted to the bar before the stage got me.”
“Well, I’ll be—!” Little ’Dolph’s fork halted in its hurried trip upward.
Gloria pushed her plate aside and leaned farther over the table, eager interest warming her eyes. Brooks brought his round to meet them. Sitting there with the flames flickering over tawny hair and smoky gray dress, she seemed somehow part of them.
“Tell us how it happened, John.”