She Buildeth Her House

by Will Levington Comfort

Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish you would tell me just what Quentin Charter did to make you think of him always—in connection with that name."

"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate before you—also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly, and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature. ".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe that he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in Caller Herrin,—my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an exceptionally good play. It took his eye—my work especially—and he arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain.... The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room, not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he was drinking—and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed—of every book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight—to me. He used to send notes in the forenoon—things he thought of, when he couldn't sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since."

Paula began to breathe a bit more freely. "Didn't he write?"

"Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an answer to one of mine—dictated a letter to me——" Selma Cross halted. The lids narrowed across her yellow eyes.

"He had said he loved you?" Paula asked with effort.

"By the way," Selma Cross retorted, "did you notice that word 'love' in either of his recent books—except as a generality?"

"Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it," Paula said with consuming interest.

"No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or woman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words," she went on softly. "The man was a lover—beyond dreams—impassioned."

"About that dictated letter?" Paula urged hastily.

"Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was back, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's stenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward—that he was in a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there—if he kept up the pace he was going when I knew him."