Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/267

256 enough to go to the theatre. I shall go on being young so long as Miss Amber is acting."

"May I sit down?" said she pathetically. "You're rather overwhelming. I thought it would be terrific and severe and suspicious. But you know you are bland—simply bland."

"This is your fault, Lomas," said Reggie severely. "I have often been called flippant and even futile, but never bland before—never bland."

"It is a tribute to your maturity, my dear Fortune."

Her golden eyes sent a glance at Reggie. "Mature!" she said. "I suppose you are real? Oh, let's be serious. I am Jane Brown, you know. Amber—of course I had to have another name for the stage—Amber because of my hair." She touched it.

"And your eyes," said Reggie.

"Never mind," said she, with another glance, but the gaiety had gone out of them. "My father was a doctor in Liverpool. He is worth twenty thousand of me, and he never made enough to live on. A poor middle-class practice, the work wore him out by the time he was fifty, and now he's an invalid in Devonshire. He can't walk upstairs even—heart, you know. And he simply pines to work. Oh, I know this doesn't matter to you, but I can't forget it. If only people were paid what they're worth! I beg your pardon. This isn't businesslike. Well, he was the doctor the Kimball family