A few months before, she had supposed that social intercourse was a large factor in the actor’s life, that midnight suppers were shared by the cast, and that intimacy of an unconventional if harmless nature reigned among them.  Now, with some surprise, she learned that this was not the case.  The actors, leaving the play at different moments, quietly got into their street clothes and disappeared; so that Mabel and Wallace, usually holding the stage for the last few moments by reason of their respective parts of maid and lover, often left a theatre empty of performers except for themselves.  Jesse would frequently reach home enough earlier to be sound asleep when his wife rushed in to seize her hungry and fretting baby.  Little Leroy spent the early evening in Martie’s bed; one of the maids in the house being paid in Mabel’s old finery for coming to look at the children now and then.

At intervals the Bannisters and the Cluetts did have little after-theatre suppers, but Martie was heroically dieting, Mabel tired and sleepy, and both gentlemen somewhat subject to indigestion.  So Martie and Wallace more often went alone, Martie drinking bouillon and nibbling a cracker, and her husband devouring large orders of coffee and scrambled eggs.

They had been married perhaps eight weeks when Wallace astonished her by drinking too much.  She had always fancied herself too broad-minded to resent this in the usual wifely way, but the fact angered her, and she suffered over the incident for days.

It was immediately after the termination of his successful engagement, and he and the Cluetts were celebrating the inauguration of a rest.  With two or three other members of the cast, they went to dine at the Cliff House, preceding the dinner with several cocktails apiece.  There was a long wait for the planked steak, during which time more cocktails were ordered; Martie, who had merely tasted the first one, looking on amiably as the others drank.

Presently Mabel began to laugh unrestrainedly, much to Martie’s half-comprehending embarrassment.  The men, far from seeming to be shocked by her hysteria, laughed violently themselves.

“Time f’r ’nother round cocktails!” Jesse said.  Martie turned to her husband.

“Wallace!  Don’t order any more.  Not until we’ve had some solid food, anyway.  Can’t you see that we don’t need them?”

“What is it, dear?” Wallace moved his eyes heavily to look at her.  His face was flushed, and as he spoke he wet his lips with his tongue.  “Whatever you say, darling,” he said earnestly.  “You have only to ask, and I will give you anything in my power.  Let me know what you wish—–­”

“I want you not to drink any more,” Martie said distressedly.

“Why not, Martie—­why not, li’l girl?” Wallace asked her caressingly.  He put his arm about her shoulders, breathing hotly in her face.  “Do you know that I am crazy about you?” he murmured.