Though they had left the Metropolitan long before the final curtain, on Broadway the midnight tidal bore of motor traffic was even then gathering way and volume, the first waves of after-theatre patrons were washing the doorsteps of those st.u.r.dy restaurants which had withstood the blast of Prohibition, the foyer of the Palais Royal already held a throng of some proportions. In this omnium-gatherum of confirmed New Yorkers and self-determined suburbicides, arrayed in every graduation of formal, semi-formal and informal dress, and drawn together by the happy coup of that year's press-agent in heralding the establishment as a favorite resort of what the Four Million still styles its Four Hundred, the women stood grouped in their wraps and wistfully watching their men-folk importune a headwaiter who was heroically holding the staircase against all-comers, pa.s.sing only the fore-handed in the matter of reservations, and putting all others to ignominious rout with the standardized statement that there was not a table upstairs left untaken.

At first glance, the huge main room on the second story, with its serried semicircles of tables and its flamboyant colour scheme, seemed less frequented by clients than by waiters; but the influx of the former was constant, and when, shortly after Lucinda and Daubeney had been seated, a gang of incurable melomaniacs crashed, blared and whanged into a jazz fox-trot, the oval dance floor was quickly hidden by swaying couples.

For some minutes Lucinda sat looking out over without seeing these herded dancers, only aware of the shifting swirl of colour and the hypnotic influence of savage music, her thoughts far from this decadent adaptation of jungle orgies which she had come to witness. And presently a smile began to flicker in the depths of her eyes.

"Oh!" she said, rousing when Daubeney uttered a note of interrogation--"I was thinking about this afternoon, remembering that funny little man moping and mowing in his magnificent delusion that he was conducting an orchestra."

"It was amusing, illuminating, too. One begins to understand why the movies are what they are. If I'm not mistaken, the author of that asinine exhibition is rated as one of the ablest directors in the business."

Lucinda quoted Mr. Lane's eulogy of King Laughlin.

"Well, there you are," Dobbin commented. "I presume genius must be humoured in its poses; even so, I saw nothing in Laughlin's directing to offset the silliness of his performance with the orchestra. I should say the business is poorly organized that permits men of his calibre, with so little sense of balance, to hold positions of absolute authority."

"You don't think Mr. Lane may have exaggerated Mr. Laughlin's importance----"

"Perhaps; though he was honoured with suspicious reverence by everybody present."

"Except Mr. Culp."

"Well, yes; Culp didn't seem so much overpowered. All the same, I noticed he didn't attempt to call Laughlin to order."

"But possibly the man _is_ a genius. He seemed to know what he was about when he was showing them how to play that scene."

"I'll admit his grasp of primary mechanics; but the scene as he built it would have been ridiculous in the theatre."

"But it wasn't for a theatre, it was for the movies."

"Precisely my point. Why should motion-picture plays be less plausibly done than plays on the stage? The American theatre outgrew 'Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model' long before motion-pictures were seriously thought of; I mean, American audiences outgrew such trash. Yet today our movies are shaped on identically the lines of the popular melodrama that was laughed off the boards a generation ago. There's something wrong."

For some reason which Lucinda didn't stop to a.n.a.lyze, Daubeney's arguments stirred up a spirit of contentiousness.

"At all events, Mr. and Mrs. Culp seemed satisfied."

"Two people who have made a huge lot of money in an astonishingly short time: it isn't likely they'd be disposed to interfere with the system that enriched them, even allowing that they are sensible of its defects."

Lucinda caught herself frowning, then had the grace to laugh. "Can't make me believe they're lacking in artistic appreciation, Dobbin."

"Why not?"

"You don't know about the handsome offer Mr. Culp made me, with his wife's approval, just as we were going away."

It was Dobbin's turn to frown. "What kind of an offer?" he demanded shortly.

"To become a movie actress under the Culp banner, a sister-in-art to Alma Daley."

Daubeney e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed "What for?" with an expression of such utter dumbfounderment that Lucinda gasped with stifled mirth, then gave way to outright laughter.

"You're awfully funny, Dobbin! And they thought they were paying me a compliment."

But Daubeney would not see the fun of it.

"Do you mean to tell me that fellow Culp actually had the impertinence----"

"Oh, come!" Lucinda's amus.e.m.e.nt subsided. "It wasn't so bad as all that.

Mr. Culp was most kind, at least he meant to be. He said he, his wife and his cameraman--whose opinion he values more highly than any director's--all agreed I had shown a great deal of promise; and that, if I cared to try it on, he'd be glad to give me a good part in Miss Daley's next picture, and if I made good in that he'd form a company to star me."

"What rot!"

"Dobbin!"

"They're trying to work you----"

"But, my dear! isn't it barely possible Mr. Culp was sincere?"

"The thing's absurd on the face of it."

"Isn't that a matter of opinion?"

"It's a characteristic scheme to exploit you to Alma Daley's profit, to get her a lot of publicity on the cheap by letting the newspapers announce that Mrs. Bellamy Druce is going to act in her support."

"You won't admit, then," Lucinda persisted, nettled, "I may possibly have some latent ability as a motion-picture actress?"

"It doesn't matter. The proposition is a piece of--of preposterous impudence. What did you say to Culp?"

With countenance half averted, Lucinda said coldly: "My dear Dobbin: do you realize you're being rude?"

He was all contrition. "Oh, I'm sorry, Cinda, if I let my indignation on your behalf----"

"Gratuitous, you'll admit."

Daubeney reddened and swallowed hard. "I repeat: I didn't mean to offend. I apologize."

"Very well, Dobbin. Let's say no more about it."

But Lucinda's tone lacked friendliness, and the eyes were visibly sulky that, refusing to recognize his pleading, blindly surveyed the milling riot of dancers.

The silence that fell between them, like a curtain of m.u.f.fling folds, was presently emphasized by an abrupt suspension of the music. When Daubeney could endure it no longer, he broke it with a question, the most impolitic conceivable: "You didn't tell me what answer you gave Culp, Cinda?"

"Didn't I? But I'm sure it doesn't matter."

To himself, but half-aloud, Dobbin groaned: "Oh, the devil!"

But his manifest penitence earned him no more than a show of restoration to favour. The heart in Lucinda's bosom felt hot and hard and heavy with chagrin, she had banked so confidently on Dobbin's sympathy.... He might be truly in love with her, she hadn't much doubt that he was, but the understanding she had counted on was denied her, the sense of security in his affection was no more. She felt cruelly bereft, more desolate than at any time since the breach with Bel had begun to seem unbridgeable.

It made no difference that she knew this feeling was unfair to both, that its childishness was clear to her whom it victimized the most. The day-long drain upon her emotions was inexorably exacting its due. With no more provocation than a sting of puerile pique, she had lost her temper, and all her efforts to retrieve it seemed unavailing. She felt broken, beaten, and very tired, she wanted to creep away to bed and cry herself asleep. Yet she must somehow find strength to hold up, or forfeit self-respect, she dared not confess the stuff of her spirit as mean as her heart's. She shook herself impatiently....

At the same time the band rewarded tireless hand-clapping by again breaking loose in blasts of delirious cacophony, and Lucinda pushed back her chair.