“I’m sorry, Eris,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too. You won’t want me for another picture, I suppose.”
“Would you stay?”
“I have to, don’t I? There’s my contract, you know.”
“Good God, Eris, I didn’t realise I loved you seriously. I’m half-crazed by this; I—I don’t know what to do——”
“Then let me suggest that you talk it over with your wife,” she said. “That ought to be a household remedy for you, Mr. Smull.”
She passed him, stepped to the lift, rang, turned and laughed at him with all the insolence of virgin intolerance.
“You little slut,” he said in a distinct voice that quivered, “I don’t get you but you’ve played me for a sucker. You’re out! Do you get that? Now run to your Kike attorney with your contract!—God damn your soul!”
As she stepped into the lift she thought: “—Burlesque and all.” But the strain was telling and she was close to tears as she went out into Park Avenue and got wearily into her taxi-cab.
“Oh, dear,” she said in a low voice. “Oh, dear.” But reaction was tiring her to the edge of drowsiness. She yawned, wiped the unshed tears from her eyes with her wisp of a handkerchief, yawned again, and lay back in the cab closing the grey virgin eyes that had looked into hell and found the spectacle a cheap burlesque.