he could hardly bear to put
it in words. But she did. It seems that the scoundrel had listened to
some studio gossip to the effect that she had divorced the husband who
deserted her, and so he come right out and said he had been deeply in
love with her ever since that first day on the train, and now that she
was free, would she marry him?

Of course she was insulted to the limit and told him so in what would
probably of made a gripping scene of a good woman spurning the advances
of a moral leper. She overwhelmed him with scorn and horror for his foul
words. How dared he say her Clyde had deserted her, or think she would
ever divorce him! That showed, what a vile mind he must have. She said he
got awful meek and apologetic when he learned that she still clung to the
memory of Clyde, who would one day fight his way back to her if he hadn't
ended it all. She told him fully what a perfect man Clyde was, and she
said at last the ugly old wretch just grinned weakly at her in a very
painful way, like it hurt him, and said: "Oh, my dearest, you must try to
forgive me. I didn't know--I didn't know half the truth." Then he patted
her hand and patted her cheek and choked up and swallowed a couple of
times, and says he:

"I was an old man dreaming and dreams make fools of old men!"

Then he swallowed again and stumbled out through her garden where the
orange blossoms had just come. She said he'd never been offensive since
that time, barking as nasty to her as to any of the others when she was
acting, so that no one would dream what a foul heart he had, except that
he always kept a bunch of white roses in her dressing room. But she
hadn't cared to make him trouble about that because maybe he was
honestly trying to lead a better life.

Some entertainment Vida give me, telling this, setting on her bed under a
light that showed up more lines than ever in her face. She was looking
close to forty now--I guess them crying scenes had told on her, and her
yearning for the lost Clyde--anyway she was the last woman on earth could
of got herself insulted even if she had tried her prettiest, only she
didn't know that. And she'd had her little thrill. We've all dreamed of
how we'd some day turn down some impossible party who was overcome by our
mere beauty.

I said I'd always known this director was an unspeakable scoundrel,
because he insisted on calling me Mrs. Pettijohn.

Then we had a nice talk about Clyde. She'd had no word for a year