“Bah!  I’d look nice running for mayor, wouldn’t I?  The newspapers would howl calamity, and the demagogues would preach that I would soon impose English wages in the shops, and all that tommyrot.  No, thank you; I’ll take trouble as it comes, but I’m not looking for it.”

“I see that I shall have to go back there and start the ball myself,” said Warrington, jesting.

“Why don’t you?  You are not a rank outsider.  The people are proud of you.”

“And always will be, so long as I have sense enough to remain here in New York,” dryly.  “But if I lived there ...!”

“You are not always going to live in New York?”

“Not always.”

“You’ve a beautiful old home up there.”

“I bought that just to show the people I had the money,” laughing.  “They may never forget my cabbages, but they’ll forgive them.”

“Nevertheless, you ought to return.”

“Listen,” said Warrington, lifting his hand.  They became silent, and presently the voice of the city came into the room.  “I’m afraid I could not live away from that.  How many times have I stopped work to listen to it!  How many inspirations have I drawn from it!  It is the siren’s music, I know, but I am no longer afraid of the reefs.  Perhaps I have become enamored with noise; it is quite possible.”

“I have lived in London.  I thought it was going to be hard to break away, but it wasn’t.”

They lighted cigars, and Bennington took up the photograph again.

“A lovely face,” was his comment.

“With a heart and a mind even more lovely,” supplemented Warrington.  “She is one of the most brilliant women I have ever met, and what is more, humorous and good-humored.  My word for it, she may have equals, but she has no superiors on this side of the ocean.”

Bennington looked up sharply.

“Nothing serious?” he asked gently.

“Serious?  No.  We are capital friends, but nothing more.  There’s been too much comradeship to admit anything like sentimentality.  Ah, boy, you should see her act!”

“I have.  I saw her in London last season.  She was playing your War of Women.  She appeared to me enchanting.  But about these actresses ...”

“I know, I know,” interrupted Warrington.  “Some of them are bad, but some of them are the noblest creatures God ever put on earth; and yonder is one of them.  I remember.  Often we were both in debt; plays went wrong; sometimes I helped her out, sometimes she returned the favor.  We were more like two men.  Without her help I shouldn’t be where I am to-day.  I always read the scenario of a play to her first; and often we’ve worked together half a night on one scene.  I shall miss her.”

“What!  Is she going away?”

“After a fashion.  She has retired from the stage.”

“Do you believe she means it?” asked Bennington.  “You know how changeable actresses’ moods are.”