Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a
loss to understand--unless there lurked under that impudence a trace
of unflattering truth.
As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of
selfillumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor;
that for a while--a long while--a space of time he could not at the
moment conveniently compute--he had been playing a role merely
because he had become accustomed to it.
Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that
part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His
tragedy had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he
had emerged from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he
had forgotten that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which
in the sunshine might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought
him funny.
Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her
eye--and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious.
"You're quite right," he said, smiling easily and naturally; "I am
unintentionally funny. And I really didn't know it--didn't suspect
it--until this moment."
"Oh," she said quickly. "I didn't mean--I know you are often
unhappy--"
"Nonsense!"
"You are! Anybody can see--and you really do not seem to be very
old, either--when you smile--"
"I'm not very old," he said, amused. "I'm not unhappy, either. If I
ever was, the truth is that I've almost forgotten by this time what
it was all about--"
"A woman," she quoted, "between friends"--and checked herself,
frightened that she had dared interpret Quair's malice.
He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his
visage.
"Oh," she faltered, "I was not saucy, only sorry. . . . I have been
sorry for you so long--"
"Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my
career?"
"It's generally supposed. I don't know anything more than that.
But I've been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing," she said under
her breath.
"Is it?" he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh.
"Don't you think so?"
"I have not thought of it that way, recently. . . . I haven't
thought about it at all--for some years. . . . Have you?" he added,
trying to speak gravely.
"Oh, yes. I have thought of it," she admitted.
"And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?"