Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/244

236 Springer-Sykes was a safe card to play; he was manager of "The Temporal City," and it was to him that Dolly owed her part in that solid production.

"That's too bad!" cried Dolly hotly. "I never carried on with Bill! Besides, Bill's business! You know a girl can't get on in the Profession nowadays without being civil to people like Bill. It's the only way of getting your chance!"

"And a very nice way, too," I said in my nastiest voice. "Oh, you are hateful!" said Dolly, and she stamped her foot. "You know as well as I do that I hate the great vulgar brute!" I did not know it: indeed I believed that between Dolly and Mr. Springer-Sykes there was much in common. But I had got her on her defence and I proposed to keep her on it.

"And you wrote me two letters from the States, and then not a single word," I said bitterly.

"And how could I? Rushing about from place to place like that!"

"Easily, if you'd wanted to. The fact is," I said still more bitterly, "you forgot all about me. What with your Bill and your Americans you never gave me a single thought."

"I did! I thought about you often. But, look here, you agreed to take me as I was. I told you my artistic temperament would not let me do the conventional things. I have to consider my Art."