"What on earth could any but an insane man expect to get on Enderby?"

contemptuously asked Banneker.

Shooting a covert look at his principal, Ives either received or assumed a permission. "Well, there was some kind of an old scandal, you know."

"Was there?" Banneker's voice was negligent. "That would be hard to believe."

"Hard to get hold of in any detail. I've dug some of it out through my Searchlight connection. Very useful line, that."

Ives ventured a direct look at Banneker, but diverted it from the cold stare it encountered.

"Some woman scrape," he explicated with an effort at airiness.

Banneker turned a humiliating back on him. "The Patriot is beginning to get a bad name on Park Row for this sort of thing," he informed Marrineal.

"This isn't a Patriot matter. It is private."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Banneker in disgust. "After all, it doesn't matter.

You'll have your trouble for your pains," he prophesied, and returned to 'phone Betty Raleigh.

What had become of Banneker, Betty's gay and pure-toned voice demanded over the wire. Had he eschewed the theater and all its works for good?

Too busy? Was that a reason also for eschewing his friends? He'd never meant to do that? Let him prove it then by coming up to see her.... Yes; at once. Something special to be talked over.

It was a genuine surprise to Banneker to find that he had not seen the actress for nearly two months. Certainly he had not specially missed her, yet it was keenly pleasurable to be brought into contact again with that restless, vital, outgiving personality. She looked tired and a little dispirited and--for she was of that rare type in which weariness does not dim, but rather qualifies and differentiates its beauty--quite as lovely as he had ever seen her. The query which gave him his clue to her special and immediate interest was:

"Why is Haslett leaving The Patriot?" Haslett was the Chicago critic transplanted to take Gurney's place.

"Is he? I didn't know. You ought not to mourn his loss, Betty."

"But I do. At least, I'm afraid I'm going to. Do you know who the new critic is?"

"No. Do you? And how do you? Oh, I suppose I ought to understand that, though," he added, annoyed that so important a change should have been kept secret from him.

With characteristic directness she replied, "You mean Tertius Marrineal?"

"Naturally."

"That's all off."

"Betty! Your engagement to him?"

"So far as there ever was any."

"Is it really off? Or have you only quarreled?"

"Oh, no. I can't imagine myself quarreling with Tertius. He's too impersonal. For the same reason, and others, I can't see myself marrying him."

"But you must have considered it, for a time."

"Not very profoundly. I don't want to marry a newspaper. Particularly such a newspaper as The Patriot. For that matter, I don't want to marry anybody, and I won't!"

"That being disposed of, what's the matter with The Patriot? It's been treating you with distinguished courtesy ever since Marrineal took over charge."

"It has. That's part of his newspaperishness."

"From our review of your new play I judge that it was written by the shade of Shakespeare in collaboration with the ghost of Moliere, and that your acting in it combines all the genius of Rachel, Kean, Booth, Mrs. Siddons, and the Divine Sarah."

"This is no laughing matter," she protested. "Have you seen the play?"

"No. I'll go to-night."

"Don't. It's rotten."

"Heavens!" he cried in mock dismay. "What does this mean? Our most brilliant young--"

"And I'm as bad as the play--almost. The part doesn't fit me. It's a fool part."

"Are you quarreling with The Patriot because it has tempered justice with mercy in your case?"

"Mercy? With slush. Slathering slush."

"Come to my aid, Memory! Was it not a certain Miss Raleigh who aforetime denounced the ruffian Gurney for that he vented his wit upon a play in which she appeared. And now, because--"

"Yes; it was. I've no use for the smart-aleck school of criticism. But, at least, what Gurney wrote was his own. And Haslett, even if he is an old grouch, was honest. You couldn't buy their opinions over the counter."

Banneker frowned. "I think you'd better explain, Betty."

"Do you know Gene Zucker?"

"Never heard of him."

"He's a worm. A fat, wiggly, soft worm from Boston. But he's got an idea."

"And that is?"

"I'll tell you in a moment." She leaned forward fixing him with the honest clarity of her eyes. "Ban, if I tell you that I'm really devoted to my art, that I believe in it as--as a mission, that the theater is as big a thing to me as The Patriot is to you, you won't think me an affected little prig, will you?"

"Of course not, Betty. I know you."

"Yes. I think you do. But you don't know your own paper. Zucker's big idea, which he sold to Tertius Marrineal together with his precious self, is that the dramatic critic should be the same identical person as the assistant advertising manager in charge of theater advertising, and that Zucker should be both."

"Hell!" snapped Banneker. "I beg your pardon, Betty."

"Don't. I quite agree with you. Isn't it complete and perfect? Zucker gets his percentage of the advertising revenue which he brings in from the theaters. Therefore, will he be kind to those attractions which advertise liberally? And less kind to those which fail to appreciate The Patriot as a medium? I know that he will! Pay your dollar and get your puff. Dramatic criticism strictly up to date."

Banneker looked at her searchingly. "Is that why you broke with Marrineal, Betty?"

"Not exactly. No. This Zucker deal came afterward. But I think I had begun to see what sort of principles Tertius represented. You and I aren't children, Ban: I can talk straight talk to you. Well, there's prostitution on the stage, of course. Not so much of it as outsiders think, but more than enough. I've kept myself free of any contact with it. That being so, I'm certainly not going to associate myself with that sort of thing in another field. Ban, I've made the management refuse Zucker admittance to the theater. And he gave the play a wonderful send-off, as you know. Of course, Tertius would have him do that."

Rising, Banneker walked over and soberly shook the girl's hand. "Betty, you're a fine and straight and big little person. I'm proud to know you.