Yet Dan was “playing” too. After all, Lorraine was his wife and he had grown fond of her—used to her would be more truthful and less romantic. She was “mighty good to have about.” It was a relief to return from New York with memories of Thurley as the great opera singer, aloof, coquettish, temperamental, useless save for her own work, and find the sunny little home with Lorraine who never questioned his absence nor shirked in her tasks. And if the tapestry furniture, Queen Anne walnut and mahogany pedestals with plaster statues got on Dan’s nerves when he recalled Thurley’s strangely beautiful apartment, and Lorraine’s dowdy frocks made him visualize Thurley in some wonderful swirl of satin and lace—Dan realized that a man may be happily married and yet partly in love with some one else at the same time. After this realization, he re-ordered his life to fit the situation and his generosity to Lorraine, like his manner, was dangerously kind and thoughtful. The town, which would never exhaust Thurley’s return as a topic for debate, said, fooling its narrow little self, “I guess Dan is sorry for how he acted!”
Sometimes Thurley wondered if Bliss Hobart knew of Dan’s visits. Once she was determined to make him speak to her about something save her voice and decided to tell him, but he forestalled her by saying that the “songbirds” were giving him an album as a present and although he did not care which picture most of them selected for his gift, he had an idea he wanted Thurley as her own self and not in any costume rôle—did she mind?
They were in his office when he made the request, Bliss sitting at his desk, as he had been sitting the first time she had seen him, his fingers touching the little mascot she had shyly presented that initial and wretched Christmas.
“Of course not,”—knowing she blushed unbecomingly. “What sort of a ‘myself’ picture will your majesty have?”
“Oh, just Thurley—when you blush do you know you leave the rouge boundaries far behind? Please don’t do your hair like oyster shells—Lissa is the only person sufficiently vulgar to do so—and wear a close fitting white turban besides!”
Emboldened by his request Thurley ventured further, “What makes you order me about so? Am I always to be a novice in your eyes?”