Professional Lover Part 16

She heard the front door bell. She stiffened to a strained attention. She glanced about hurriedly, almost as though seeking some means of escape. But it was a woman's voice in the hallway. A minute later the same woman stood in the doorway.

"Dear, dear," Rita Desmond murmured and laughed. "Rex's sitting room becomes more like the waiting room of a fashionable physician every day. Just what is your complaint, Miss Thayle?"

Starr smiled back at her. "The same as yours, I should fancy, Mrs. Desmond. I want to see Rex Brandon."

"So do most women, my dear! You're quite unoriginal! And what have you done with my strong stalwart husband in the meantime, if it's not indelicate to ask?" She seated herself on the arm of a chair. "By the way," she murmured after a slight pause, "I suppose you know we'll be divorced quite soon now?"

Starr colored painfully. "Yes, I believe so," she murmured.

Rita snapped open her cigarette case and handed it across to Starr. "Have one? And are you waiting with bells on for the decree nisi, my dear?"

Starr took the cigarette and lighted it. She was glad of something to do with her hands. "No, I'm * I'm not going to marry your husband, Mrs. Desmond."

"Dear, dear," Rita murmured again and laughed. "That sounds like a line from a modern play. 'I'm not going to marry your husband.' Well, I don't suppose I can blame you. I found him rather dull myself."

Another pause. Rita threw back her head and let a thin spiral of blue*gray smoke glide slowly to the ceiling.

"I feel in a confidential mood," she said at last. "Besides, I'm rather thrilled about it. I'm going to be married myself immediately I'm free."

Queer, the effect that had upon Starr. She felt as though someone had suddenly given her a knockout blow in the pit of her stomach."To * to Rex Brandon, I suppose?" she managed to say at last.

"Oh, dear, no," Rita laughed. "This is serious!"

"Your affair with Rex Brandon was serious enough for you to start to elope with him once,"

Starr retorted tartly.

Rita smiled mysteriously and shook her head. "No, it was never serious. I know that now.

Now that I'm really in love. I realize it was just playing at love, my affair with Rex. Rather lukewarm playing at that. I'm afraid I rushed him rather. The poor darling was quite horrified when I made him elope with me. And he hadn't even kissed me! You wouldn't believe it, would you?"

"I certainly find it rather hard to believe," Starr said in a voice that was curiously stifled. Yet it was eager, too.

Rita nodded her pretty blonde head twice. Her long silver earrings jangled pleasantly. "Just shows how much stranger life is than fiction, doesn't it? That was certainly an insane affair!

Rex and I often laugh about it. We're great pals now that I'm engaged to Harry. Funny" * she smiled slightly * "how much more some men appreciate your friendship once they know you're definitely fixed up with some other man!"

Starr didn't comment on that. She was too full of what Rita was telling her. Could it be the truth?

"But * but you did try to elope," she heard herself stammer.

Rita threw her a searching look. Her eyes narrowed curiously.

"But even then it wasn't serious. Rex knew I wasn't really in love with him. That's why he had no intention of going through with it. He told me the other day that his trunk was full only of books and that he intended to leave the ship before it sailed. I admit I would have been furious at the time, but, as he said, much better for me to be furious than to have him go through with it, then discover I didn't really love him. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, I suppose it would be," Starr said unsteadily. She was conscious of an odd sense of elation. A sense that she had never been quite so happy in all her life before.

"Now Harry's quite different," Rita was saying. "We adore each other pa.s.sionately. He's awfully intense, you know. I'm supposed to be meeting him here. Rex asked us both to drop in for a c.o.c.ktail. But I suppose he's been kept at the office again."

Just then they heard the front door open, and Rex's voice sounded in the hallway. Starr was seized again by that insane desire to escape. Now it was even more urgent. She felt she could scarcely bear to face Rex.

But she had to, of course. There he stood, tall and lean, smiling slightly, in the doorway.

Rita laughed and waved to him gayly. "Here we all are, Rex. Like Old Home Town Week, isn't it?"

But Rex didn't answer her. He had just seen Starr.

Rita tried again. "I think I'll buzz off if you two don't mind. I'll drive by the office and pick up Harry in the car. He must be there still. We were going out this evening, anyhow, so we haven't much time. You don't mind, do you?" Her eyes twinkled, and she answered her own question. "No, of course you don't."Rex came to with a start. With an effort he withdrew his eyes from Starr. "Oh * er * I'm awfully sorry, Rita. But you'll have a c.o.c.ktail before you go?"

"Couldn't think of it, darling. Alcohol is so fattening. I've sworn off it for a whole week.

Thank heavens this is the seventh day! But you might see me out, Rex."

"Yes, of course, Rita." He spoke jerkily. As though, despite a strenuous effort, he couldn't keep his mind on what she was saying. Not for two minutes.

He turned formally to Starr. "You'll excuse me?"

"Yes, of course." She found her voice with an effort.

Rita waved two gloved fingers in Starr's direction. "Good*bye, my dear. I'm sure you'll feel better for our little chat. Queer," she mused, "how magnanimous one can be to one's rival *

once one is safely in love with someone else!"

"I'm sorry Harry couldn't get here," Rex said, in the hallway. "You must bring him in some other time."

Rita opened her amber eyes very wide. "Oh, but he could get here. He may be here any moment. Send him on after me, won't you?"

"Then why...?" he began, puzzled.

She squeezed his arm affectionately. "This is my good deed for the day! Or rather it's my second." She laughed and added, "You may find out about the first one later on." She blew him a kiss and disappeared into the elevator.

Rex closed the door and walked back into the sitting room. Curiously he found his hands were shaking. He thrust them deep into his pockets.

But, once inside the doorway, he didn't appear in the least nervous. He crossed his feet and leaned indolently against the Victrola stand. He even contrived a faintly derisive grin.

"Well, Starr, dropped in to have a c.o.c.ktail, eh?"

She shook her head. She couldn't be casual just then. "It's * it's about your playing lead in that picture, Lovable Rake," she began in a rush.

His smile faded. "But I'm not going to play lead in it."

She knotted her hands together tightly.

"Yes, you are, Rex. You must."

He raised one eyebrow. "Must, Starr? And where do you come in * since you're not playing in the picture yourself?"

"But I am, Rex." She swallowed some obstruction in her throat. "I agreed to do it this afternoon."

"Oh." He raised the other eyebrow. "I thought your boy friend objected!"

She turned her face aside sharply. "I am going to play in it," she repeated in a strained voice.

"Wise girl! I thought the lure of stardom would prove too much for you," he smiled slowly.

"Pity I'm not going to play in it myself now."

"But you must," she insisted.He shrugged slightly. "Too late, child. Al gave me until six to capitulate, and I didn't capitulate. I bet he's as mad as ten snakes. My contract is probably in little bits in the wastepaper basket by now."

She leaned a little forward. She said hurriedly, "But I saw him, Rex. He's promised to give you until midnight to decide."

He was staring at her. "You saw him on my behalf?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, I" * she swallowed again * "I couldn't bear you to sacrifice your contract, Rex."

"You seem very concerned about me all of a sudden," he said lightly. He shook a finger at her and added mockingly, "Better be careful, my dear. Your future husband mightn't like it!"

'I haven't got a future husband, and... and you needn't be beastly to me." Her voice suddenly broke. She turned her face aside. She sniffed hard twice.

Rex straightened. The mocking light died out of his eyes. He crossed over to her in two quick strides. He sat down on the arm of her chair and put two fingers under her chin. He forced her to look up at him.

"What is all this about, child?"

"Nothing... nothing." She sniffed harder. "Only I didn't want you to sacrifice your contract and..."

He laughed softly. He put an arm about her shoulders and drew her a little to him. "So you didn't want me to sacrifice my contract? I should have thought that was the one thing in the world that would please you most."

She said in a small, choked voice, "I * I hate you, Rex Brandon."

He laughed again gently and drew her more closely to him.

"That's better, child. More up to old form, eh? Let's have it again. Only louder this time *

and with more conviction: 'I hate you, hate you, hate you, Rex Brandon.' "

But she didn't say it. So he kissed her. And after he had kissed her for quite a long while he said, "How's the hating now?"

She laughed shakily. "It's died down for the moment, Rex." She hid her face against his shoulder. He put his lips against her ear and whispered, "And how's the loving, darling?"

She gulped a little. "It's coming on finely, thanks very much."

They both laughed, and he said, "Blest if I know how you could ever had been such a stubborn little fool, Starr!"

But she didn't seem to mind even that. Perhaps it's hard to make an insult sound convincing when you're holding the girl you're insulting in your arms at the time.

Al Hammond almost choked over his morning coffee. There it was in headlines. "Rex Brandon to co*star with Fiancee in Next Picture... A wonderful screen romance..." he began reading. But before he was halfway through the column he was on the telephone to his publicity man.

"Say, George, this is great," he enthused. "Just the stuff the public will eat up. It will put the new girl across big, too. You're a genius, lad. But are you sure it won't make Rex mad?""Mad? h.e.l.l, no!" George laughed easily. "This is the first good publicity story I've ever written that happens to be true!"