Presently he looked up.
“I take it you are not coming out to me.”
Goring in the depths of a chair some distance from him stirred uneasily. “My dear boy, I’ve told you. It’s not only impractical—it’s impossible.”
“Of course! I was an ass to think you might.”
“Can’t you see? I’m not my own mistress. I belong to my public. I’ve got to conserve my strength for them—and my work.”
“Yes,—I see.”
“If I consulted my own desires—but I haven’t the moral right. I must sacrifice what you want—what I want—to what my public expects of me.”
He might have reminded her of the years he had given to creating that public for her. He might have dwelt at length on his Machiavellian boosting of a red-haired show girl through the columns of his own paper and gradually with insertions here and there in periodicals of the theater, until managers began to ask who this Jane Goring was. [78] ]He might have made mention of the evenings he had spent round the Lambs and the Friars adding to his list of acquaintances, as men can only at men’s clubs, those who would eventually be of service to her.
He merely smiled with his lips, lighted another cigarette and tried to cover the fact that the flame flickered.
“You must understand how I’m placed,” she persisted.