Professional Lover Part 5

Starr's face flamed suddenly. She was furious with herself, but she could do nothing about it. How much did Stephen's wife know of her feelings towards him * or did she only suspect?Rita had put on a coat over her bizarre boudoir gown. She carried her hat in her hand. She looked more lovely than ever with her hot, angry face and her amber eyes flashing. "Please get my dressing case out of the cabin," she said to Stephen. "We'll take that with us. You can tell them to bring the rest of my luggage off as you leave the ship."

She started towards the door, but just before pa.s.sing through she stood and glowered at Rex.

For some time past he had been leaning against the arm of the couch, his arms folded, staring down rather intently at his shoes.

"I hope you're proud of yourself," she flung at him.

He gave her a little mocking bow. "Pa.s.sably, my dear Rita!"

"Oh!" she fumed. She appeared to hesitate. Then, for a moment, she came quite close to him. "Don't think this is the end, for it isn't," she murmured. "You can't get out of this so easily as you think!" With that she turned and swept through the doorway. She didn't so much as glance at Starr.

A moment later Stephen appeared with the dressing case. A shiny red one that looked most absurdly out of place in his hand.

"Thank you again, Miss Thayle, and good*bye," he said quietly.

"Good*bye," Starr echoed.

Still he hesitated in the doorway. His eyes, brown eyes full of contempt, rested upon Rex.

"I should have respected you more had you fought for her decently," he said cuttingly. "To persuade her to elope with you, then to desert her like that at the first sign of danger! Really, I didn't think a man could! Still" * his lips twisted derisively * "I suppose it's in your nature to behave that way. You started your film career by playing cad's parts. You've never stepped out of the category, have you?" And with a curt nod he left.

8

A dull red crept slowly to Rex's temples. Apparently that last thrust of Stephen's had hit him on the raw. He ran a hand through his dark hair and gave a short, sharp laugh.

"All this must be very illuminating for you, Miss Thayle!"

Starr said quietly, "Well, you brought it upon yourself, didn't you?"

His lips twisted grimly. 'Did I? Perhaps you're right." He hesitated; then he did a curious thing. He straightened slowly and came towards her. He stood looking down at her, his hands thrust deep in pockets, an expression in his blue*gray eyes she couldn't fathom. "Do you despise me very much, Miss Thayle?" he asked at last. And there was a note of humility in his voice which, to the girl, didn't seem in keeping with his character at all.

"Does it matter whether I despise you or not?" she asked presently.

He nodded slowly. "I think it does." His lips twisted, and he added, "That's queer, isn't it?

That it should."

She hesitated a moment. "You can scarcely expect me to admire your conduct, can you?"

His lips tightened, but, queerly, his eyes were hurt.

"Is that my answer?"

She bent her head. "I'm afraid it must be."

"Well!" He shrugged slightly. He was silent a moment. He crossed to the table and fingered the gun. "At least I have to thank you for saving my life," he said at last with a low, queer laugh. "Though you did make it clear at the time it wasn't for I sake you intervened!"

She didn't say anything to that. Instead she crossed towards the door. "We'd both better get off this ship, hadn't we?" she said. "It will be sailing in half an hour. Haven't you got to pack?"

"Oh, yes." But a curious smile she didn't understand flittered over his lean, handsome face.

He walked into the adjoining cabin, and as he lifted the lid of his trunk he wondered, momentarily, if he should show her the contents. Nothing but books! But a second later he had slammed the lid down.

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I will!" he muttered savagely. His face hardened, and his chin protruded aggressively. If she wanted to think the worst of him, let her! For the moment he even persuaded himself he didn't care.

When he returned to the sitting room, she was on the point of leaving. "How are you going to get back?" he demanded.

"I'll get a train."He raised one eyebrow quizzically. "At this hour of night? My car's here. Let me drive you back."

She shook her head. "I'd rather you didn't."

"My dear child, you're surely not going to let your dislike of me cause you to sit for hours on a drafty railroad platform! Isn't that carrying it a bit too far?"

She flushed slightly. There had been a certain mocking note in his raillery. "Thanks all the same, but I don't want you to drive me back," she said coldly.

He looked at her curiously. "I wonder why you hate me so much," he mused. "I may have kidded you the first time we met, but I can't think of anything else I've done that might annoy you."

"Nothing else?" She gasped it aloud in quick, sudden anger. "It's nothing to you, I suppose, that you've almost ruined Stephen Desmond's career, his very life, even. Why..." She shuddered a moment, thinking what Stephen might have done had she not grasped his arm that time he had been about to jump onto the windowsill. But she couldn't tell Rex that. She wouldn't give Stephen's weakness away. "Why," she repeated, "you dared to elope with his wife even though you weren't really in love with her. For you couldn't have loved her and handed her back to him the way you did. I suppose it was just vanity on your part. Seeing if you couldn't take her from him! Yet you wonder what I have against you!"

"But all these things you've enumerated I've done against Stephen Desmond," he pointed out quietly. He hesitated a moment and drew his dark brows together. "You're not in love with him by any chance, are you?"

Now her face was hot. It flamed like her hair. "How dare you!" she stammered.

"It was merely a suggestion." He grinned down at her crookedly. But for all that there was an anxious look in his blue*gray eyes.

She swung away from him abruptly. "Good*bye, Mr. Brandon. I'm going now." Her voice was tight with anger.

"Please be sensible," he begged. He added, smiling, "No need for you to take everyone's troubles on your own shoulders, my dear."

But she didn't reply. She merely held her head very high and marched out of the room.

'We'll meet again," he promised lightly.

"Not if I can help it!" she flung back at him.

"But you mayn't be able to," his laughing voice called after her. "It takes two to avoid a meeting, and you're only one!"

But after she had gone, the crooked smile faded. His blue*gray eyes clouded. "Isn't that the very devil!" he thought, ruefully. "Half the women in the United States in love with me, curse 'em, and the one girl I want turns up her tiny, adorably freckled nose at me. More than that, she despises me. She wouldn't touch me with a barge pole... sweet darling that she is!"

Starr's fury against Rex mounted as she made her way to the railroad station. The rain probably helped. It came down and enveloped her like a depressing wet blanket. There wasn't a taxi in sight. Her green cloth coat was soaked through. Her smart shiny straw hat fell abouther face like a floppy straw basket. Of course in all fairness she knew she couldn't blame Rex for the weather. She would have liked to, though!

She felt he had behaved in the worst way a man could behave. An out*and*out bounder.

Not content with having wrecked Stephen's home, tried to seduce his wife, he had even tried to start a flirtation with her! As though he imagined he had but to smile on a woman and she would fall into his lap like an overripe apple! And when she had showed him she wasn't like that, he had dared to presume she was in love with Stephen. That there was truth in his presumption onlv made Starr the more furious. After all, nothing is more infuriating than to be told the truth!

She had to wait almost an hour for a train. She sat cold and shivering in the ladies' waiting room. And, occasionally, she couldn't help thinking of Rex Brandon traveling comfortably back in his luxurious car. It was human nature to think of it. It was also human nature to resent it. After all, wasn't Rex Brandon the cause of this whole miserable mess*up? Certainly the cause of her sitting here shivering in damp, uncomfortable clothes.

"I wish I could take him down a peg," she thought angrily. "I wish I could show him up as he really is! The great lover, indeed! A vain, selfish man who thinks every woman is after him.

If only I could! Anything, anything I had to pay would be worth it!"

When at 2 a. m. Starr returned to her small one*room apartment she found a message from her newspaper thrust under the door.

"What about that stuff on Rex Brandon?" her editor had scribbled. "We could use it tomorrow. An article I was going to use in the film page has fallen through. If you've got the dope rush it through and hand it in by four this morning. I won't have time to look it over, but I know I can rely on you. Flatter him. These film stars like that!"

"Flatter him!" Starr exclaimed in a fierce, indignant voice. "Flatter him! Yes, I'll flatter you all right, Mr. Rex Brandon!"

She wasn't quite sane that night, remember. She had developed a bad cold in her head, and she ached in every limb. Besides, she was tired out from the strain of the afternoon and evening. She made herself a cup of strong black coffee and set to work. Occasionally she had to stop to sneeze violently. All of which didn't make her feel any more kindly disposed towards Mr. Rex Brandon.

It was more an article than an interview. There was so much more of Starr Thayle in it than of Rex Brandon. Her opinions, at least. She stated, in no uncertain terms, that she thought the sudden rise to fame of Mr. Rex Brandon was a black mark against the mentality of American womanhood. What self*respecting girl could like this actor whose only role seemed to be the obvious bounder very thinly coated by the veneer of a gentleman? And they pa.s.sed him off as the hero, too! The great lover! The lounge*lizard professional lover, rather! Wasn't his present eminence a direct insult to every intelligent woman?

She said a lot more. At three in the morning you can get rather worked up on a subject on which you feel strongly. Then, before she had time to repent, or to read it through even, she rushed it down to her newspaper.

"I shouldn't be surprised if this gets me the sack!" she thought with a tight wry smile as she handed it in. "Still, it's been worth it!" And she sneezed again violently.

She was quite right about one thing. That article did get her the sack. It was libelous. She even admitted to herself, when she read it in cold print, that she must have been mad to write it.She knew you must never use your paper to air a personal spite. The one unpardonable sin of journalism. And she had conimitted it!

In film circles that article created quite a furore. The first time the great Rex Brandon had ever been directly attacked. Some were hotly indignant; others secretly pleased. In his own studios, where Rex was a great favorite from office boy to director, indignation ran riot.

Women from all over the country wrote furious letters to the paper and sweet letters of condolence and undying adoration to Rex. They a.s.sured him pa.s.sionately that he was their ideal lover and always would remain their ideal lover.

Stephen Desmond read it at lunch on Sunday and threw the paper across to Rita. "There, what do you think of your great lover now? Rather unmasks him, doesn't it?" He couldn't keep a distinctly pleased note out of his voice.

Rita read it through without comment. This morning she wasn't so furious with Rex as she had been last night. She was too much in love with him to remain furious with him for long.

Already she had begun to find excuses for his conduct. Almost she had persuaded herself that his curious behavior had been but a blind to shield her. He had felt it would be best for her to go back with Stephen and so avoid a scandal. So he had chosen the only method that would ever have made her go back. He had pretended he didn't love her! So beautifully altruistic of him! Saying he didn't love her while his heart was breaking. The more she thought about it the surer she became that his heart had been breaking. She seemed to remember all sorts of little things to substantiate this belief.

"Well, what do you think about it?" Stephen asked gruffly.

"I think the girl's jealous," was Rita's comment.

Stephen raised his thick dark eyebrows. "Jealous?"

Rita smiled the annoying smile of a woman who understands all but is not going to explain.

"Yes, jealous."

"Why on earth should Miss Thayle be jealous of Rex Brandon?"

She looked at him in sweet exasperation. "Jealous of me, stupid!"

"Jealous of you?"

"Yes," impatiently, "she was probably in love with Rex Brandon herself. I see it all now.

That's why she seemed so upset when she found me in his flat. Why she rushed down to the West East Studios to tell you, so that you could stop us. And she's used this means of being revenged."

"I'm sure Miss Thayle isn't in the least in love with Rex," Stephen cut in sharply. He didn't know why the idea annoyed him so much. He supposed because Rex was his enemy and Starr was his friend. Still there was no sense in feeling so personally upset.

Rita shrugged. "If half the women in America are in love with him, I don't see why she shouldn't be!"

"Miss Thayle is much too sensible!" he said angrily.

Rita flung the paper down and stamped upon it. "Which means I'm not, I suppose! How dare you say that, Stephen? Why, last night you seemed to understand. You swore you did.

You promised you'd never throw it in my face, never so much as mention it."

"But I didn't mention it," he said, in man*like bewilderment."Yes, you did, you did, you did..." She was on the verge of hysteria again.

Stephen did his best to comfort her. But, somehow, he couldn't put the same zest into it. He kept turning over in his mind the idea that Starr, too, might be in love with Rex. And the more he thought about it the less it pleased him.

As often happens, the person most concerned is the last to hear about a thing. Rex didn't see that article until the following evening. Then his publicity agent showed it to him.

"Rather bad business, this article, eh, Mr. Brandon?" he said, as he entered Rex's attractively furnished sitting room.

"What article?" Rex demanded as he strode forward to meet him.

"Why, the one in the Sunday Recorder, of course. You must have seen it, Mr, Brandon?"

Rex shook his head. "Have you got it there?"

The man produced it from a portfolio of clippings he carried under his arm.

Rex took it over to the light. It was a signed article. There could be no doubt who had written it. A slight flush rose to his temples as he read it through. Once or twice he pa.s.sed a hand back over his dark hair, and a sharp little exclamation escaped him. Mr. Meecher, the publicity agent, grew exceedingly apprehensive and not a little uncomfortable.

"Of course I got in touch at once with the editor and protested," he murmured. "He apologized. He a.s.sured me that the article had been put in without his sanction. He also said the person responsible had already been dismissed!"

"What?" Rex swung towards him suddenly. "Did you say dismissed?"

"Certainly, Mr. Brandon. Naturally I pointed out that was small consolation to us. All the same..."

But Rex wasn't listening. "You mean she was dismissed because she wrote this article about me?"

"Apparently the tone of the article was in direct disobedience to the editor's instructions.... I hope you're not very annoyed, Mr. Brandon."

Suddenly, much to Mr. Meecher's surprise, Rex flung his head back and gave a short, sharp laugh. "Annoyed, Meecher? I'm delighted. Now I come to think of it, I really am delighted.

You see, it means she isn't indifferent. Hate you can turn to love; contempt, too, you can overcome; but indifference, that's fatal. There's nothing at all to be done about indifference.

But she isn't indifferent. You do see that, Meecher?"

But Mr. Meecher didn't see it at all. In fact he was wondering if the great Rex Brandon hadn't suddenly gone a little insane.