She laughed softly.
“I thought that was part of your delirium that night at the hospital, or part of mine. But as other people saw you kiss me, it must have been yours. I don’t think I want to marry,” she said thoughtfully. “I am—”
“Don’t say that you are wedded to your art,” he groaned. “They all say that!”
“No, I’m not wedded to anything, except a desire to prevent my best friend from making a great mistake. You’ve a very big career in front of you, Michael, and marrying me is not going to help you. People will think you’re just infatuated, and when the inevitable divorce comes along—”
They both laughed together.
“If you have finished being like a maiden aunt, I want to tell you something,” said Michael. “I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”
“Of course you have,” she said calmly. “That’s the only possible way you can love a girl. If it takes three days to make up your mind it can’t be love. That’s why I know I don’t love you. I was annoyed with you the first time I met you; I was furious with you the second time; and I’ve just tolerated you ever since. Wait till I get my makeup off.”
She got down and ran to her dressing-room. Michael strolled across to comfort an exhausted Jack Knebworth.
“Adele? Oh, she’s all right. She really has had an offer from America—not Hollywood, but a studio in the East. I’ve advised her not to take it until she’s a little more proficient, but I don’t think she wanted any advice. That girl isn’t going to stay in the picture business.”
“What makes you think that, Knebworth?”
“She’s going to get married,” said Jack glumly. “I can recognize the signs. I told you all along that there was something queer about her. She’s going to get married and leave the screen for good—that’s her eccentricity.”
“And whom do you think she will marry?” asked Michael.
Old Jack snorted.
“It won’t be Reggie Connolly—that I can promise you.”
“I should jolly well say not!” said that indignant young man, who had remarkably keen ears. “I’m not a marrying chap. It spoils an artist. A wife is like a millstone round his neck. He has no chance of expressing his individuality. And whilst we are on that subject, Mr. Knebworth, are you perfectly sure that I’m to blame? Doesn’t it strike you—mind you, I wouldn’t say a word against the dear girl—doesn’t it strike you that Miss Leamington isn’t quite—what shall I say?—seasoned in love—that’s the expression.”
Stella Mendoza had strolled up. She had returned to the scene of her former labours, and it looked very much as if she were coming back to her former position.
“When you say ‘seasoned’ you mean ‘smoked,’ Reggie,” she said. “I think you’re wrong.”
“I can’t be wrong,” said Reggie complacently. “I’ve made love to more girls in this country than any other five leading men, and I tell you that Miss Leamington is distinctly and fearfully immature.”
The object of their discussion appeared at the end of the studio, nodded a cheery good night to the company and went out, Michael on her heels.
“You’re fearfully immature,” he said, as he guided her across the road.
“Who said so? It sounds like Reggie: that is a favourite word of his.”
“He says you know nothing whatever about lovemaking.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” she said shortly, and so baffling was her tone that he was not prepared to continue the subject, until they reached the long, dark road in which she lived.
“The proper way to make love,” he said, more than a little appalled at his own boldness, “is to put one hand on the waist—”
Suddenly she was in his arms, her cool face against his.
“There isn’t any way,” she murmured. “One just does!”
Colophon
The Avenger
was published in 1926 by
Edgar Wallace.
This ebook was produced for
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Road to a House with a Red Roof,
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