Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/158

148 "Having some old man mumble a few words and then poking a metal ring on my third finger? Would it change us, one single bit?"

"It would change everything," he contended, amazed at what seemed sheer paganism in her. Once more she fell to studying his face. In it, apparently, she read all the arguments which his tongue had failed to utter, for her own milky brow was slowly clouded with a frown of thought.

"Krassler would kill me," she said, as much to herself as to the man beside her.

"What has Krassler got to do with it?" quickly countered the other.

That question appeared to be no easy one to answer. It seemed to involve a studious turning of the matter over and over in her mind.

"Can't you see, Owen, what Krassler's doing for me? He's trying to make me into an actress. He says he's giving me the chance of a lifetime. He says he'll pitch me head-first into Broadway if I'll only put myself in his hands. He even claims he can make me a star, inside of two seasons."

"What do you mean by ' putting yourself in his hands'?"

She was, apparently, making it a point to be very patient with him.

"I mean doing my work, my part, the way he wants it done, the way it ought to be done."

"I imagine there are more Krasslers than one in this city," retorted Storrow, embittered by some incongruous sudden sense of estrangement between him and the woman so close to him.

"That's where you're wrong," she amended.

"There's only one Krassler. I may be empty-headed, but I've brains enough to see that. If I can ever do anything on the stage it's only because he's standing behind me. He knows acting, every trick and move of