“Amounts to the same thing, my dear. Well, when the papers speak of Cunningham, they call him a clubman—whatever that may mean—and turfman. He keeps a string of blooded horses at his place on Long Island that are the envy of exhibitors all over the country. He has a shooting box in the Adirondacks. He’s second Vice-president of a railroad or two, is a regular first-nighter, has more money than any one woman could spend, and no one woman has so far succeeded in annexing it. Men like him and women feel toward him much [292] ]as they do toward original sin—they love and fear him at the same time.”
“Thank you,” Nancy imitated his crisp tone. “After that, I really don’t think I care to know the gentleman.”
“You will—sooner or later,” drawled Thorne.
Nancy turned indifferently from the object of discussion, but in that one short glance she could have told you exactly what he looked like. Ted Thorne in a way was right. Cunningham was one of those men whom women sense the instant they enter a room, not so much for height, big shoulders and powerful dark head, as for a certain dynamic force that stimulates fear and curiosity at once. In Cæsar’s day he might have been a Marc Antony, but I doubt whether Cleopatra could ever have persuaded him to abandon his armies for her dear sake. More likely the devastating Egyptian would have descended from her throne, laid her dainty olive hand in his and followed where he led.
For a man with manifold interests, Cunningham had few hobbies—two, to be exact—his horses and the theater. Actors, managers, dramatists, press-agents, all the busy bees in that hive of Broadway, knew him—some by sight only, others well enough to call him by his given name. No first night was complete without him. His familiar shoulders swung down the aisle at eight-thirty sharp, hand stretched here and there in greeting.
It was said his love of the theater far exceeded his interest in women. In the same way, though in lesser degree, they were necessary to his happiness—for amusement. They entertained him. But as the play is done in a few hours and one seeks new diversion, so they had [293] ]a way of revealing themselves to him that after a short period became a bore. He grew to know them too well—and the glamor was gone. To-morrow another play! To-morrow—!
And then he met Nancy Bradshaw.
It happened the opening night of Thorne’s comedy just at the time Coghlan surprised Nancy by elevating her to stardom.
What a difference one little preposition makes! Stepping out of a taxi into dripping rain at the stage entrance, Nancy heard a shriek and saw her colored maid drop a hatbox on the wet pavement to point wildly at the electric sign outside the Coghlan Theater.
Instead of:—