“Yes; I do!”
“So do most people at one time or another,” was Miss Greene’s philosophical commentary upon this.
“Not you,” declared Darcy, glancing up at the vivid face above her resentfully. “I’ll bet you’ve never known what it is to feel that way in your life.”
“Oh, I’m too busy for such nonsense,” returned Gloria in her serene and caressing voice.
Indeed, it would be difficult for any one favored with Miss Gloria Greene’s acquaintance to imagine her wishing to depart a life to the enjoyment of which she has vastly added for thousands of people. For under a slightly different name Miss Greene is known to and admired by most of the theater-going populace of the United States. From the top of her ruddy, imperiously poised head to the tip of her perfectly shod toes, she justifies and fulfills in every line and motion the happy thought which inspired the dean of American playwrights to nickname her “Gloria.” Deeper than her beauty and abounding vitality there lies a more profound quality, the rare gift of giving graciously and naturally. It is Gloria Greene’s unconscious and intuitive mission in life to lend color and light and cheer to colorless, dim, and forlorn folk wherever she encounters them. That is why Darcy Cole was, at the moment, dribbling tears and aspirations for an immediate demise all over Gloria’s rare Anatolian rug. Not that Darcy really desired to die. She merely wished Gloria Greene to make life more practicable for her.
“That’s imagination, you know,” continued the actress.
“It isn’t,” snivelled Darcy.
“Then it’s indigestion. Have a pill.”
“I won’t!” declined the girl rudely. “You’re making fun of me. They all make fun of me. I do wish I was dead!”
“Do you, indeed!”