“Would it be a great sacrifice to give it all up?” he whispered in a yet lower tone.
Rita shook her head, persistently staring at the tassel.
“For me?”
She gave him a swift, half-frightened glance, pressing her hands against his breast and leaning, back.
“Oh, you don’t know me—you don’t know me!” she said, the good that was in her touched to life by the man’s sincerity. “I—don’t deserve it.”
“Rita!” he murmured. “I won’t hear you say that!”
“You know nothing about my friends—about my life—”
“I know that I want you for my wife, so that I can protect you from those ‘friends.’” He took her in his arms, and she surrendered her lips to him.
“My sweet little girl,” he whispered. “I cannot believe it—yet.”
But the die was cast, and when Rita went to the theatre to dress for the afternoon performance she was pledged to sever her connection with the stage on the termination of her contract. She had luncheon with Monte Irvin, and had listened almost dazedly to his plans for the future. His wealth was even greater than her mother had estimated it to be, and Rita’s most cherished dreams were dwarfed by the prospects which Monte Irvin opened up before her. It almost seemed as though he knew and shared her dearest ambitions. She was to winter beneath real Southern palms and to possess a cruising yacht, not one of boards and canvas like that which figured in The Maid of the Masque.