"Oh, so it's 'Rex' now? And I do care! Why the h.e.l.l should he have all the women?" He flung it out savagely. "Rita's out there at the studio all day. You're here waiting on his pleasure in the evenings. Dining with him, dancing with him, flirting with him or I'm much mistaken!"

"Stephen!" Her genuine surprise grew to amazement. She had never heard him talk like this before. She couldn't understand it. It didn't seem in keeping with his character. Besides, it was ironical. She had only been going about with Rex in order to separate him from Rita. For Stephen's own sake. Still she couldn't very well tell him that!

"Look here, Starr, will you come and dine with me tonight? Would you care to?"

Would she care to? An evening alone with Stephen was the one thing in the whole world she hungered for most. Couldn't he see that * the dear stupid?

"But Rita?" she protested.

He straightened angrily. "To h.e.l.l with Rita. I'm sick of being the tame husband. Besides, it would do her good to see me flirting with another girl for a change. That, more than anything else, should bring her to her senses."

"I see," Starr said quietly. She turned away from him and walked slowly over to the white bal.u.s.trade. She stared down very hard at a gay and gaudy bank of geraniums. There was a queer stinging sensation behind her eyeb.a.l.l.s. "I see," she repeated. "You want me to play apart, as it were. Flirt with you in order to enhance your value in your wife's eyes. I... I don't think I can do that, Stephen."

He came over to her. He covered her hand with his. He lowered his voice. "I didn't mean it like that, Starr. Put like that, I admit it sounds rotten. But... I'd like you to come out with me.

More than anything, Starr. That last evening we spent together I was happier than I've been in months.... Don't you want to make me happy?"

"Yes, Stephen." It was a whisper that somehow got lost in her throat.

He squeezed her hand gently. "Bless you, Starr. I owe much to you. I'm just beginning to realize how much."

She didn't reply. She couldn't.

"You will come, Starr? We'll dine anywhere you say. And it isn't just to pay out Rita, either.

It's because I want you to come... very much... dear."

Evening had fallen like a soft gray cloak upon them. The sweet scents from the banked flowers in the garden grew more pungent. The sky was too pale yet for stars. The moon was a faint curve of silver.

"At times I think I did a very foolish thing once," he went on in low, even tones.

"Sometimes I think I sacrificed something very precious for what was rather worthless."

And still she didn't speak. Both intense misery and an awed elation were struggling within her. She didn't dare try to understand what he meant.... Perhaps he didn't mean anything.

Perhaps he was just carried away by the glorious blue*red evening and the scent of the flowers below.

And then, sweeping up the driveway, came the powerful headlamps of a fast racing car. A large, low*slung yellow car with a great bonnet like the nose of some prehistoric monster. Like twin searchlights its lamps picked out the still figures of Starr and Stephen standing together on the balcony.

"What did I tell you, Rex?" Rita, snuggled down beside Rex in the front seat, laughed in a high*pitched, forced manner. "I thought we'd find Stephen here when he left the studio early and we couldn't find him at the hotel."

"Why on earth should you have expected to find him here?" Rex asked irritably.

"But of course that girl's crazy about him. That Thayle girl. She's always been in love with him. Ever since she was his secretary."

"Rot!" Rex e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed it savagely. "Starr isn't in love with anyone."

Rita smiled. A tiny malicious smile that sent little ironic crinkles running up her pretty cheeks. "With anyone except you, you mean, don't you, darling?" She sighed. "All men like to believe every attractive girl is in love with them. And yet they call us the vain s.e.x! But, seriously, my sweetest, I'm sure Miss Thayle is in love with my worthy husband. Yet I suppose one was oneself at one time. It's a lapse one tries to forget!"

Rex didn't pay any attention to her. He had jammed on the brakes so hard that the back tires skidded in the gravel path and, with scant ceremony, he hustled Rita out.

"You're taking me out to dine tonight, aren't you, my angel?" she asked pertly as she thrust her arm through his. "And let's have a c.o.c.ktail. Don't worry about those two on the balcony.

They seem to be enjoying themselves without us!"Rex took her straight to the c.o.c.ktail lounge. Then, having ordered her a Martini, he excused himself. He felt restless, irritable, savage. What Rita had told him had thrown him into the devil's own temper. He hadn't definitely arranged with Starr to dine with him tonight. Rather he had taken it for granted. Hang it all, they had dined together for the past three nights!

He didn't want to walk out onto the balcony where he had seen her and Stephen together, but all the same he presently found himself there. Not more than a few yards away from them.

He coughed with more force than discreetness. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding," he said in a voice that belied his regret. "But shouldn't you be getting changed, Starr? I've ordered dinner at the usual time tonight."

They both swung towards him. Stephen stiffened angrily. In that moment his hatred and resentment towards Rex were almost uncontrollable. Perhaps Rex sensed this, for he stiffened, too. Yet there was something mocking in his att.i.tude. And he smiled, that slightly crooked smile of his.

"Miss Thayle has promised to dine with me tonight," Stephen said coldly.

"You're going to disappoint me, Starr?" Rex ignored Stephen and addressed her directly.

She smiled faintly. "I'm afraid so, Rex." She added, "I didn't promise, you know."

"No, of course you didn't." Rex's smile twisted. He turned towards Stephen and added, "Well, my dear Stephen, since you're taking my secretary to dinner, am I to be permitted to take care of your wife?"

Stephen laughed bitterly. "I didn't think you usually bothered to get my permission for that, Brandon? At least you haven't in the past."

Rex's smile became a shade crookeder. "But one can reform, you know," he said lightly.

"No man is so bad that a good woman's influence can't help him * isn't that so, Starr?"

Her cheeks crimsoned. She could cheerfully have hit him in that moment. She knew he was making fun of her.

"I'm going to change," she said coldly. "If you'll meet me here in half an hour, I'll be ready."

She ignored Rex. It didn't matter about him. She was going to have a glorious evening.

But the evening was spoiled.

There was no reason why it should be spoiled, but it was. The tete*a*tete dinner with Stephen was flat. She couldn't rise above her sense of annoyance with Rex. It dominated everything else. She only half heard all that Stephen said to her. Her replies grew so vague that he leaned across the table and covered her hand with his.

"You're worried about something, Starr? What is it, my dear? Aren't I sufficiently your friend to share it with you?"

"Oh, it's nothing," she said quickly. "Perhaps I've been doing too much work, and it is hot tonight."

"It's that man, isn't it?" he said abruptly. "You hate working for him? Any girl would hate working for a cad like that. Look at the way he behaved tonight. If you hadn't been there I would have told him what I thought of him. You've got to give in your notice, Starr."

A queer panic stirred within her. She couldn't understand it.

"Yes... but I've nothing else to do," she complained.He paused a moment, crumbling some bread. "I've been thinking about that," he said presently. "Why don't you let us give you a camera test? If you photograph well * and there's no reason why you shouldn't * I could use you later on in this picture. I was going to bring an extra girl down from Hollywood, but if you prove suitable there would be no need for that.

What do you say?"

Starr caught her breath. Like all other girls she had always dreamt of some day becoming a famous star. But that dream, she thought, was too fantastic. Like a sensible girl she had turned her back on it. But here was Stephen offering her a part of that very dream on a silver platter.

"What do I say?" She laughed breathlessly. "It would be wonderful, Stephen."

"Good!" He squeezed her hand tightly. "I'll see you get the test in the morning. And I'm sure you'll be suitable. You can give Rex your notice as soon as you please."

"Yes..." Queer she wasn't more pleased about that. Why should she want to remain the secretary of a man she despised? She didn't, of course, and yet Stephen's suggestion filled her with a sense of dismay.

"In the morning,"' he repeated. And there was a grim satisfaction in his tone. "I shouldn't leave it any later."

But, as it happened, she didn't have to wait until the morning. Rex was waiting for her when she returned to the hotel that night.

As she pa.s.sed through the deserted lounge, his tall lean form rose out of a deep lounge chair.

"h.e.l.lo, Starr, what's the hurry?" He barred her way and grinned down at her crookedly. "Sit down, child. I've been waiting all evening to talk to you."

14

Starr said, "I'm sorry. I'm awfully tired, Rex. Couldn't it wait until morning?"

"Of course it could," he smiled. "But I don't want it to wait. Look here, Starr," * he shifted his weight from one foot to the other * "why wouldn't you have dinner with me tonight? Why did you go out with Stephen instead? Are you in love with him?"

"Have I got to be in love with every man with whom I go out to dinner?" She forced a smile, but she was furious with him.

"No. All the same, something put it into my head that you might be. Are you?"

"You have no right to question me like this," she said angrily.

"Right?" He smiled mockingly. "What has right to do with it? I do a good many things I have no right to do. It makes them more interesting."

"I can well believe that!" she flung back at him.

But he continued to smile. "You haven't answered my question."

"And I've no intention of answering it."

"Then," he sighed, "I shall have to find out for myself."

"How can you?" she demanded suspiciously.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and grinned sardonically.

"Any number of ways.... For instance, I might kiss you. If you didn't respond, that might be fairly convincing proof * what do you think?"

"You're insufferable, aren't you?" She was becoming so furious she could scarcely speak to him. "Why should you think if I didn't respond to your kisses I was in love with anyone?"

His grin broadened. "Don't expect me to be modest, please, Starr. I've told you before, man is a conceited animal."

"Not all men," she challenged him.

He c.o.c.ked one eyebrow. "Meaning Stephen Desmond?"

Her face flushed. "Perhaps."

He frowned. "And so I have my answer.... But I'm surprised at you, Starr." His voice grew mocking again. "I thought you, more than anyone else, respected the sacred precincts of matrimony. Look at the flurry you were in when his wife contemplated eloping with me!"

"You would put all the blame on her, wouldn't you?" Her small voice was openly sarcastic.He threw back his head and chuckled. "Beg pardon, my dear. Man always takes all the blame, doesn't he? It's heroic and conventional. I venture to remark that few men would act heroically if it wasn't the right and conventional thing to do! Still, now you're in love with the husband perhaps you regard my affair with Rita a trifle more leniently?"

"How dare you!" she threw at him. 'There is no similarity between my friendship with Stephen and your past affair with his wife!"

"Friendship!" His voice was openly skeptical.

"Yes, friendship," she repeated firmly.

He waggled an eyebrow at her. "Now, look here, Starr, will you swear to me that all you feel for Stephen is a good and enn.o.bling friendship? Of course you won't." He answered his own question laughingly. "You couldn't do it. Really, there's no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman. And why should there be? If I want a friend I choose a man. He's usually more intelligent, and one doesn't have to play up to him."

"You haven't a very high opinion of women, have you?" she said coldly.

"That's where you're wrong, child." He smiled faintly, and despite himself an odd seriousness crept into his tones. "I adore women. Feminine women who realize they were made to be loved and don't fuss about it. But I loathe and despise your so*called 'sensible'

woman. Usually she wants all the man's privileges and the attentions you'd pay a feminine woman as well! She won't openly admit she wants them, of course. But she becomes disgruntled if you don't give them to her. She wants you to admire a close*up of her brain and a long*distance shot of her body. And man, poor brute, is so constructed that he prefers it the other way round."

"I'm rather tired, I'll go to bed if you don't mind," Starr said in the pause that ensued.

He caught her hand. "Don't go to bed, Starr. Come out on the balcony with me. It's a glorious night. A pity to waste it. And we're in this world so short a time, why should we waste any of the good things of life?"

"Perhaps what you consider a good thing I don't consider so good," she reminded him.

He laughed and bent closer to her. "But I'm sufficiently vain to believe I could convince you. Come, Starr. The sea will be blue*black tonight, faintly purple, and the sky will be blue*

black, faintly purple, too. And you and I, Starr, may never have another moment like this in our lives again. Other moments, of course, but never one just like this. Come along."

She went, although she knew at the time it was a weakness to go. She couldn't have told you why she went, either. But occasionally Rex's deep voice, with that slight husky note to it, could have a peculiar effect upon her. She supposed it had the same effect upon the millions of other women who contributed to his staggering fan mail. It compelled you to do things you didn't want to do. It spoke to something within you you hadn't even realized was there. Or, perhaps, you didn't want to realize it.

"I've had a wretched evening," he said abruptly. "I've felt like a small schoolboy punished for something he hadn't done. You won't treat me again like that, will you, dear?"

He moved closer to her in the soft, translucent darkness. One hand touched her bare arm. A queer shiver ran through her. She moved from him hastily. "Why, Starr?" He questioned gently. "You're unfair to me. Every time I approach you, you erect an unnatural barrier between us. You won't give me a chance... You won't give yourself a chance."She said * and afterwards she never knew why she said it just then; perhaps because there was a strange tension inside her and she had to say something practical to get rid of it: "I'm going to leave your employ, Rex. I'm giving you notice. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" He laughed sharply. "I mind like h.e.l.l. And you're doing nothing of the sort."

"But I am, Rex," she insisted. "This time I mean it. Stephen's * Stephen's offered me a part in the picture."

He didn't say anything for a long moment. He merely stood looking down at her through the blue*black, silver*shot darkness. But presently he shook his head slowly, and the expression on his face was almost sad. "Another little secretary who dreams of fame as a movie star, eh, child? Another little girl bound for disillusionment. I didn't think it of you, Starr. I thought you had too much sense."

He spoke gently. She saw he didn't mean to offend her. All the same she was offended.

Why should he conclude, even before she had been tried out, that she would be a failure? She asked him, and he replied in the same gentle tones. "Because so many have tried and so many have failed. Because becoming a famous star is so much a matter of chance. And because I think failure might hurt you, my dear!"