Then the business man of him began at the beginning as if he had much to say in a short time and did not want to lose the momentum of his emotion:
“Sheila, you’re a wonderful girl. If you weren’t I shouldn’t be taking you up from the army of actresses that are just as ambitious as you are. I’d be very blind not to see what the whole public sees and not to feel what everybody feels.
“This cub Vickery felt your fascination when you were a child. He never forgot you. He’s trying to put something of you into his play. That other fellow he told you about has made a vow to get to you. You have draught, and all that it means.
“But the brighter the light, the firmer its standard must be. The farther your lantern shines, the bigger and stronger and taller a lighthouse it needs. You know there’s such a thing as hiding a light under a bushel.
“Now, I’m already as big a manager as you’ll ever be a star. I can give you advantages nobody else can give you. I’ve given you some of them already. I can give you more. In fact, nobody else can give you any, for I’ve got you under a contract that makes it possible for me to keep anybody else from exploiting you. But I’m willing and anxious to do everything I can for you. The question is, what are you willing to do for me?”
Sheila knew what he meant, but she answered in a shy voice: “Why, I’ll do all I can—of course. I’ll work like a slave. I’ll try to make you all the money I’m able to.”
“Money? Bagh!” he sneered. “What’s money to me? I love it—as a game, yes. But I don’t mind losing it. You’ve known me to drop forty or fifty thousand at a throw and not whimper, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll do all you can, you say. But will you? There’s something in life besides money, Sheila. There’s—there’s—” He tried to say “love,” but it was an impossible word to get out at once. Instead he groped for her hand and took it in his hot clench.
She drew her cold, slim fingers away with a petulant, girlish, “Don’t!”