She was the kind of girl in whom certain people
would instantly have recognized the histrionic gift. But
experience had led him to think that, except at the creative
moment, the divine flame burns low in its possessors. The
one or two really intelligent actresses he had known had
struck him, in conversation, as either bovine or primitively
"jolly". He had a notion that, save in the mind of genius,
the creative process absorbs too much of the whole stuff of
being to leave much surplus for personal expression; and the
girl before him, with her changing face and flexible
fancies, seemed destined to work in life itself rather than
in any of its counterfeits.
The coffee and liqueurs were already on the table when her
mind suddenly sprang back to the Farlows. She jumped up
with one of her subversive movements and declared that she
must telegraph at once. Darrow called for writing materials
and room was made at her elbow for the parched ink-bottle
and saturated blotter of the Parisian restaurant; but the
mere sight of these jaded implements seemed to paralyze Miss
Viner's faculties. She hung over the telegraph-form with
anxiously-drawn brow, the tip of the pen-handle pressed
against her lip; and at length she raised her troubled eyes
to Darrow's.
"I simply can't think how to say it."
"What--that you're staying over to see Cerdine?"
"But AM I--am I, really?" The joy of it flamed over her
face.
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