Ah, this was living--thought Martie. Oysters and wine and a real actor,
a man who knew the world, who chattered of Portland, Los Angeles, and
San Francisco as if they had been Monroe and Pittsville. It was
intoxicating to hear him exchanging comments with Rodney; no, he hadn't
finished "coll." "I'm a rolling stone, Miss Monroe; we actor-fellows
always are!" He was "signed up" now; he gave them a glimpse of a long,
typewritten contract. Martie ventured a question as to the leading lady.

"She's a nice woman," said Wallace Bannister generously. "I like to
play against Mabel. Jesse Cluett, her husband, is in the play; and his
kid, too, her stepson--Lloyd--he's seventeen. Ever try the profession,
Miss Monroe?"

Martie flushed a pleased disclaimer. But the tiny seed was sown,
nevertheless. She liked the question; she was even vaguely glad that
Mrs. Cluett was forty and a married woman.

Wallace Bannister was older than Rodney, thirty or thirty-two, although
even off the stage he looked much younger. He had dipped into college
work in a dull season, amusing himself idly in the elementary classes
of French and English where his knowledge in these branches gave him
immediate prominence--and drifting away in a road company after only a
few months of fraternity and campus popularity. His mother and father
were both dead; the latter had been a theatrical manager in a small
way, sending little stock companies up and down the coast for one-night
stands.

Bannister was tall, well-built, and handsome. His cheeks had a fresh
fullness, and his black hair was as shining as wet coal. He was eager
and magnetic; musical, literary, or religious, according to the company
in which he found himself. Martie's thrilled interest firing him
to-night, he exerted himself: told stories in Chinese dialect, in
brogue, and with an excellent Scotch burr; he went to the rickety
piano, and from the loose keys, usually set in motion by a nickel in
the slot, he evoked brilliant songs, looking over his shoulder with his
sentimental bold eyes at the company as he sang. And Martie said to
herself, "Ah--this IS life!"

Rodney took her home, the clock in the square booming the half hour
after midnight as they went by. And at the side door he told her to
look up at the Dipper throbbing in the cool sky overhead. Martie knew
what was coming, but she looked innocently up, and went to sleep for
the first time in her life with a man's kiss still tingling on her
sm