"Three years," he said nervously, "three years! You're crazy. Mr. Haight'll take more than that if we lose. Do you think he's working for charity?"
"I forgot that."
"--And here it is Saturday," he continued, "and I've only got a dollar and some change, and we've got to live till Monday, when I can get to my broker's.... And not a drink in the house," he added as a significant afterthought.
"Can't you call up Dick?"
"I did. His man says he's gone down to Princeton to address a literary club or some such thing. Won't be back till Monday."
"Well, let's see--Don't you know some friend you might go to?"
"I tried a couple of fellows. Couldn't find anybody in. I wish I'd sold that Keats letter like I started to last week."
"How about those men you play cards with in that Sammy place?"
"Do you think I'd ask _them?_" His voice rang with righteous horror. Gloria winced. He would rather contemplate her active discomfort than feel his own skin crawl at asking an inappropriate favor. "I thought of Muriel," he suggested.
"She's in California."
"Well, how about some of those men who gave you such a good time while I was in the army? You'd think they might be glad to do a little favor for you."
She looked at him contemptuously, but he took no notice.
"Or how about your old friend Rachael--or Constance Merriam?"
"Constance Merriam's been dead a year, and I wouldn't ask Rachael."
"Well, how about that gentleman who was so anxious to help you once that he could hardly restrain himself, Bloeckman?"
"Oh--!" He had hurt her at last, and he was not too obtuse or too careless to perceive it.
"Why not him?" he insisted callously.
"Because--he doesn't like me any more," she said with difficulty, and then as he did not answer but only regarded her cynically: "If you want to know why, I'll tell you. A year ago I went to Bloeckman--he's changed his name to Black--and asked him to put me into pictures."
"You went to Bloeckman?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded incredulously, the smile fading from his face.
"Because you were probably off drinking somewhere. He had them give me a test, and they decided that I wasn't young enough for anything except a character part."
"A character part?"
"The 'woman of thirty' sort of thing. I wasn't thirty, and I didn't think I--looked thirty."
"Why, damn him!" cried Anthony, championing her violently with a curious perverseness of emotion, "why--"
"Well, that's why I can't go to him."
"Why, the insolence!" insisted Anthony nervously, "the insolence!"