But after a while one of the children began to rub his eyes, and the mother exclaimed—­it was so late!  The children had stayed awake because of the excitement, but now they must go to bed.  She bundled them out of the room, and presently came back, bearing a glass of milk and a plate with bread and an orange on it.  The master might be hungry, she said, with a humble little bow.  In her halting English she offered to bring something to us, but she did not suppose we would care for poor people’s food.  She took it for granted that “poor people’s food” was what Carpenter would want; and apparently she was right, for he ate it with relish.  Meantime he tried to get the woman to sit on the couch beside him; but she would not sit in his presence—­or was it in the presence of Mary and me?  I had a feeling, as she withdrew, that she might have been glad to chat with him, if a million-dollar movie queen and a spoiled young club man had not been there to claim prior rights.

XXIII

So presently we three were alone once more; and Mary, gazing intently with those big dark eyes that the public knows so well, opened up:  “Tell me, Mr. Carpenter!  Have you ever been in love?”

I was startled, but if Carpenter was, he gave no sign.  “Mary,” he said, “I have been in grief.”  Then thinking, perhaps, that he had been abrupt, he added:  “You, Mary—­you have been in love?”

She answered:  “No.”  I’m not sure if I said anything out loud, but my thought was easy to read, and she turned upon me.  “You don’t know what love is.  But a woman knows, even though she doesn’t act it.”

“Well, of course,” I replied; “if you want to go into metaphysics—­”

“Metaphysics be damned!” said Mary, and turned again to Carpenter.

Said he:  “A good woman like you—­”

“Me?” cried Mary.  And she laughed, a wild laugh.  “Don’t hit me when you’ve got me down!  I’ve sold myself for every job I ever got; I sold myself for every jewel you saw on me this afternoon.  You notice I’ve got them off now!”

“I don’t understand, Mary,” he said, gently.  “Why does a woman like you sell herself?”

“What else has she got?  I was a rat in a tenement.  I could have been a drudge, but I wasn’t made for that.  I sold myself for a job in a store, and then for ribbons to be pretty, and then for a place in the chorus, and then for a speaking part—­so on all the way.  Now I portray other women selling themselves.  They get fancy prices, and so do I, and that makes me a ‘star.’  I hope you’ll never see my pictures.”

I sat watching this scene, marvelling more than ever.  That tone in Mary Magna’s voice was a new one to me; perhaps she had not used it since she played her last “speaking part!” I thought to myself, there was a crisis impending in the screen industry.

Said Carpenter:  “What are you going to do about it, Mary?”