Cora Boyle’s photographs in the London Weeklies made old Carlson sneer. He lounged in Mark’s library and derided: “A fine figger and a pair of black eyes. Actress? Sure. She makes pictures of herself. And what the hell else do folks want, huh? Just that. They want pictures. You say they want fine scenery and new ideas about lights and all? Bosh, son! They want to see a good lookin’ gal in good clothes—and not much clothes—with all the lights in the house jammed on her. Act? Make ’em cry a little and they think it’s actin’. Margot’ll be the boss actress of the United States when she’s twenty—Come here, Maggie, and tell me how old you are.”
“Seven and a half,” said Margot, “and I don’t want to be an actress.”
“Huh. Why not?”
“Aunt Sadie says actresses aren’t nice,” Margot informed him.
Carlson wrinkled his yellow face and chuckled out, “Ask Mark what he thinks of ’em, sister.”
She turned her eyes up to Mark gravely and smiled. She was unlike her father, most like her mother. Mark bent and lifted her in the air, kissed her bare knees and put her hair aside from the little ears, faintly red, delightfully chilled for his mouth from a walk in the Park. She said, on his shoulder, “Oo, that’s a new stickpin, papa!”
“Diamonds get ’em all,” Carlson nodded.
“It’s a sapphire,” said Mark.
“Nice,” Margot approved and Mark felt glorified. Children were certainly a relief after the arid nonchalance of women who took money, jewels or good rôles and asked for more donations over the house telephone. Margot played with the sapphire square a moment and then scrambled down from Mark’s shoulder to his knee where she sat admiring him while he wrote checks. He smiled at her now and then, let her blot signatures and kissed her hands when she did so.
“You’d spoil a trick elephant,” Carlson muttered, “Ain’t Gurdy old enough to go to school?”