Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/29

 "You thought I could do great things. You never knew I could do—this"

It was toward the end of the month that Duncan said to me one night as we rode home on the top of a 'bus, "You don't suppose that he"

"Elise thinks it," I said. "It's waking her up."

Elise and Jimmie had been married fifteen years, and had never had a honeymoon, not in the sense that Jimmie wanted it—an adventure in romance, to some spot where they could forget the world of work, the world of sordid things, the world that was making Jimmie old. Every summer Jimmie had asked for it, and always Elise had said, "Wait."

But now it was Elise who began to plan. "When your play is produced, we'll run away somewhere. Do you remember the place you always talked about—up in the hills?"

He looked at her through his round glasses. "I can't get away from this"—he waved his hand toward the stage.

"If it's a success you can, Jimmie."

"It will be a success. Ursula Simms is a wonder. Look at her, Elise. Look at her!"

Duncan and I could look at nothing else. As many times as I had seen her in the part, I came to it always eagerly. It was her great scene—where 23