“You’ve been here in New York for two years!” he repeated in astonishment. “Have you really left the stage then? I supposed you had just arrived to fill an engagement here.”
“They gave me a try-out this afternoon.”
“You? A try-out!” he exclaimed, amazed.
She carelessly transfixed a berry with her fork:
“If I secure an engagement I shall be very glad to fill it ... and my stomach, also. If I don’t secure one—well—charity or starvation confronts me.”
He smiled at her with easy incredulity.
“I had not heard that you were here!” he repeated. “I’ve read nothing at all about you in the papers——”
“No ... I am here incognito.... I have taken my sister’s name. After all, your American public does not know me.”
“But——”