Jane Goring descended at a row of small buildings that barricaded huge ones roofed with glass. She made her way past men and women with faces ghastly white and lips preternaturally red, mounted the steps and asked for Mr. McNaughton. The attendant wanted her name [123] ]but she insisted upon being announced merely as a friend from the East. She had given Bob no warning of her visit and her eyes followed the man with a look half curious, half eager as he opened a door and disappeared along a corridor lined with offices.
He came back presently and shut the door. Mr. McNaughton had gone home. She asked his address quite as a matter of course—in a way that brooked no refusal, and once more was driven out of bedlam to the quiet of drowsy green streets, past the beautiful Hollywood homes of picture stars who yesterday were unknown.
Toward the sunset she went, melting amethystine into violet night. Shadows stretched across the road, cool and mellow, and a soft sense of fragrant tranquillity.
She lay back, closing her eyes. When she opened them she had turned a corner and was pulling up before the lawn of a rambling Queen Anne cottage set snugly in a mass of shrubbery. She gave a little start, pleasure surmounting surprise. It looked very much as though Bob McNaughton had found time to make his own career.
A gate with a lantern over it opened on a bricked path that led to the house. She paused there and looked in. Under a tree sat a man she scarcely knew. His hair was quite gray—iron gray—but the face under it was full and ruddy, the eyes keen, the mouth relaxed and smiling. The hand that held a newspaper which he no longer read was firm and capable. A hand accustomed to direct, the hand of a man sure of himself! Bob, who was almost fifty, looked less than forty!
As she stood staring at him, the house door opened and a slim figure was silhouetted against the light from [124] ]within. The figure stepped to the lawn, light shining through masses of soft brown hair like a halo, eyes glowing, red lips parted in eager welcome, and with a cry full of sweetness held out something to Bob McNaughton. He gave a laugh, sprang to his feet, bent down to the eager lips, then caught the something swiftly in his arms—with infinite tenderness hugged it close against his heart. And it gave a gurgle of delight.
Jane Goring turned and went back to the waiting taxi.
[125]
]GREASE-PAINT
REALISM
There is no such thing—either in life or the theater. For what is real to one is unreal to another. The tenement of the stage is real to those who live in drawing-rooms—the drawing-room, real to those who know only the squalor of tenements. That which seizes our imaginations with grim claws, shakes our emotions with sordid passions we have never experienced—we call reality. That which is uncertain, sad, elusive, delicate—we call unreality. Both are life!