“You have exhibited none.”

“That would seem to depend entirely upon the point of view.  Until I request your aid, however, your criticism is not desired.”

Both voice and manner were so cold that they were equivalent to dismissal, but Winston hesitated, already beginning to regret the bitter harshness of his speech.  Beneath his steady gaze her cheeks flamed hotly.

“We have been friends,” he began more humbly.  “Would you mind telling me something regarding your plans?  Just now I feel unable to offer you either aid or advice.”

Her face perceptibly brightened, as if this new mood quickly appealed to her.

“That sounds ever so much better,” she admitted, glancing up into his face.  “I have never enjoyed being scolded, as though I were a child who had done wrong.  Besides, I am quite convinced in this case I have done precisely right.  I think you would admit it also if you only had patience to hear my story.  I know exactly what I intend doing, or I should never have given all that money away.  I have an engagement.”

“An engagement?  Where?  Is there another troupe playing here?”

She shrugged her shoulders, her hands clasped.

“No, not in the sense you mean; not the legitimate.  I am going to appear at the Gayety.”

Winston stood grasping the back of the chair, staring straight at her, his body motionless.  For an instant he was conscious of a sudden revulsion of feeling, a vague distrust of her true character, a doubt of the real nature of this perverse personality.  Such a resolution on her part shocked him with its recklessness.  Either she did not in the least appreciate what such action meant, or else she woefully lacked in moral judgment.  Slowly, those shadowed dark eyes were uplifted to his face, as if his very silence had awakened alarm.  Yet she merely smiled at the gravity of his look, shaking her dark hair in coquettish disdain.

“Again you apparently disapprove,” she said with pretence of carelessness.  “How easily I succeed in shocking you to-day!  Really, a stranger might imagine I was under particular obligations to ask your permission for the mere privilege of living.  We have known each other by sight for all of two weeks, and yet your face already speaks of dictation.  Evidently you do not like the Gayety.”

“No; do you?”

“I?” she replied doubtfully, with a slight movement of the body more expressive than words.  “There are times when necessity, rather than taste, must control the choice.  But truly, since you ask the question, I do not like the Gayety.  It is far too noisy, too dirty, too gaudy, and too decidedly primitive.  But then, beggars may not always be choosers, you know.  I am no bright, scintillating ‘star’; I am not even a mining engineer possessing a bank account in Denver; I am merely an unknown professional actress, temporarily stranded, and the good angel of the Gayety offers me twenty dollars a week.  That is my answer.”