see The Blight of Broadway when it came to the
Bijou Palace. They would be surprised to see those close--ups that
Henshaw had used him in. And he was in that other picture. No close-ups
in that, still he would show pretty well in the cage-scene--he'd had to
smoke a few cigarettes there, because Arabs smoke all the time, and he
hadn't been in the later scene where the girl and the young fellow were
in the deserted tomb all night and he didn't lay a finger on her because
he was a perfect gentleman.

He didn't know what he would do next. Maybe Henshaw would want him in
Robinson Crusoe, Junior, where Friday's sister turned out to be the
daughter of an English earl with her monogram tattooed on her left
shoulder. He would ask Henshaw, anyway.

The Montague girl listened attentively to the long, wandering recital.
At times she would seem to be strongly moved, to tears or something.
But mostly she listened with a sympathetic smile, or perhaps with
a perfectly rigid face, though at such moments there would be those
curious glints of light far back in her gray eyes. Occasionally she
would prompt him with a question.

In this way she brought out his version of the Sabbath afternoon
experience with Dexter. He spared none of the details, for he was all
frankness now. He even told how ashamed he had felt having to lead
Dexter home from his scandalous grazing before the Methodist Church. He
had longed to leap upon the horse and ride him back at a gallop, but he
had been unable to do this because there was nothing from which to climb
on him, and probably he would have been afraid to gallop the beast,
anyway.

This had been one of the bits that most strangely moved his listener.
Her eyes were moist when he had finished, and some strong emotion seemed
about to overpower her, but she had recovered command of herself, and
become again the sympathetic provider and counsellor.

He would have continued to talk, apparently, for the influence of strong
drink had not begun to wane, but the girl at length stopped him.

"Listen here, Merton--" she began; her voice was choked to a peculiar
hoarseness and she seemed to be threatened with a return of her late
strong emotion. She was plainly uncertain of her control, fearing to
trust herself to speech, but presently, after efforts which he observed
with warmest sympathy, she seemed to recover her poise. She swallowed
earnestly several times, wiped her moisture--dimmed eyes with her
handkerchie