“I saw her with their child in Switzerland.”
“Then it was true! I’ve heard so many people say so. But I never could be sure.”
“It’s true. Our marriage could be kept just as secret as that.”
“Just about!” she laughed, with sudden triumph.
He was too earnest to realize that he had set a trap and stepped into it till he sprung it.
He was suddenly enraged at her and at himself. He would not accept so farcical a twist to his big scene. He broke out into a flame of wrathful desire, and rose threateningly:
“Marriage or no marriage, Sheila, you’ve got to belong to me, or—or—”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll never be a star. You’ll never play that play of Vickery’s or anybody else’s. You’ll play whatever part I select for you, as your contract says, or you’ll play nothing at all.”
He only kindled Sheila’s tindery temper. She leaped to her feet and stormed up in his face: “Is this a proposal of marriage or a piece of blackmail? I signed a contract, you know, not a receipt for one slave. Marry you, Mr. Reben? Humph! Not if you were the last man on earth! Not if I had to black up and play old darky women.”