By this time, the second act had lost whatever threads of connecting interest it may have had with the first and third; so Neuerman suggested that Peter do those over. Peter began this—locked up over Sunday in a hotel room.
Then Neuerman made this announcement:
“Well—got one more string to my bow. Trevelyan can't do your play, and she's not good enough to swing it on personality. We're going to try some one that can.”
“Who, for instance?” muttered Peter weakly.
“Grace Derring.”
We have spoken of Grace Derring. It was not a year since that tumultuous affair had brought Peter to the brink of self-destruction. And that not because of any coldness between them. Not exactly. You see—well, life gets complicated at times. You are not to think harshly of Peter; for your city bachelor does not inhabit a vacuum. There have usually been—well, episodes. Nor are you to feel surprise that Peter's face, in the space of a moment, assumed an appearance of something near helpless pain.
So Grace Herring was to be whirled back into his life—caught up out of the nowhere, just as his devotion to Sue had touched exalted heights!
The voice of the fat manager was humming in his ears.
“She made good for us in The Buzzard. Of course her work in The Gold Heart has put her price up. But she has the personality. I guess we've got to pay her.”
Peter started to protest, quite blindly. Then, telling himself that he was too tired to think (which was true), he subsided.