“But”—­her voice faltered—­“but I can’t act.  I’ve been in amateur things of course, but—­”

“You don’t have to know how to act.”  His voice rose ironically.  “Few stars do—­besides, I’m talking about vaudeville.  The highest-priced vaudeville headliner in America boasts that she can neither act, sing nor dance.”

He paused for a moment, then, as she said nothing, proceeded gravely:  “Think that over, Miss Burton.  New York pays for names and what New York pays for the rest of the country accepts—­at more than face value.  I can see to it that your contract is carefully drawn—­and you needn’t fear the usual unpleasant features of visiting managers.  They will come to you.  It’s not what you would prefer—­but if other things fail telephone me.”

It was a small restaurant, very plain but neat, and at this hour of the late afternoon the man from Park row and the woman who had once been the toast of capitals from the Irish Sea to Suez sat across one of its small tables undisturbed by other patrons.  Only a waiter stood across the room and a cat rubbed against his ankles.

In her mourning she made a wonderfully appealing picture, as she gazed down at her plate, even though her lowered lashes half-masked the mismated beauty of her eyes.  Suffering had laid a veil of transparent pallor over the brilliant vividness of her coloring—­a coloring that her lover had once likened to the gorgeousness of the Mosque of Omar.  Yet, by this, her beauty was rather enhanced than lessened as though Nature, the master-painter, had retouched a picture already wondrous, softening its colors with a tone more spiritual.  Both face and figure had lost something of roundness and the hand that lay on the table was slenderer of finger and wrist, but Mary Burton had not been robbed of her beauty, and when she spoke, very low and hesitantly, one realized that out of her voice no single golden note was missing.  She might still be truthfully advertised as one of the world’s rare beauties.

“I know,” she said softly, “that you make that suggestion in true kindness—­and I know how great my need is.  If I am to save my mother and father from starvation, I must do something, and yet—­” She paused and shuddered.  “Maybe it’s all foolish and over-fastidious, but your suggestion sets every nerve in me on edge.  It’s not very different after all from your Sunday editor’s suggestion—­except in the spirit of its making.”

“Still, there is a difference,” he assured her.  “The footlights are between and they give a sense of separation—­and protection.  Was Herron—­the Sunday man—­particularly obnoxious?  He’s not human, you know—­he’s just an efficient machine.”

The fingers of the hand that lay on the table trembled a little and Mary’s eyes as they met his were clouded with distress.