[103]
] “She has something that gets you.” The author paused meditatively. “Wonder if it’s her voice?”
“Nope,” came crisply from Cleeburg. “It’s her heart. Probably suffered like hell and that’s what puts her over.”
In Jane Goring’s boudoir some five hours later, the actress sat propped up, also like an isle in a sea of newspapers. She had read them in the small hours as had her manager. Only differently. One of the society satellites who circle round a popular star even as the moon circles round the earth and just as inconstantly, now silvering her sky, now leaving it black, had at the play’s finish carried her off to a supper party and dance. In the midst of gayeties a flunky had been dispatched for the morning papers and, in a flurry of excitement like the froth of champagne, the notices had been consumed, gushed over, forgotten.
Not so by Goring, of course. Alone in the white light of a new day, she reread them slowly, digesting each word. One watching her would have found in her eyes no glow of satisfaction, no thrill that once more she had scored. Rather was there the ghost of a frown on her brow. A frown somewhat difficult to interpret.
At eleven Cleeburg had her on the phone. He had been ringing the apartment at regular intervals since eight but her maid had refused to disturb her. His voice ran the gamut of explosive enthusiasm.
“Great, Jane, great! We’ve got ’em again! We’ve got ’em! Didn’t I tell you this one had it all over ‘Peacock’?”
He wanted to come up and lunch with her but she [104] ]told him she was tired, would see him later at the theater.
The greater part of the day she spent resting, going over her notices and dictating letters to her secretary. Toward five she dressed and sent for her car. It was a crisp, clear blue October day. A run in the park or up Riverside—there were a number of things she had to think about—would fill in time until dinner.
A restlessness unusual and unexplained made her pace the floor while she waited. So unusual was it, in fact, that it caused a vague wonder. By all previous portents she should have been exalted, lifted to the zenith of content through the knowledge that the star of her success still sailed high in the heavens. She was not. She felt nervous, distressed, with a weight on her chest that even the buoyant breezes from the river could not dissipate.
Rolling up Riverside Drive with the ease of floating in ether, she had the sense of a great hand clutching her. The sensation was the same as that which she had experienced the first day of rehearsal—only intensified. It made breathing difficult, annoyed her to the point of exasperation.