And he did not like her friends. Things came to a point where, when
he knew one of the gay evenings was on, he would stay in town,
playing billiards at his club, or occasionally wandering into a
theater, where he stood or sat at the back of the house and watched
the play with cynical, discontented eyes.

The casual meeting with Gregory and the introduction to his sister
brought a new interest. Perhaps the very novelty was what first
attracted him, the oddity of feeling that he was on terms of
friendship, for it amounted to that with surprising quickness,
with a famous woman, whose face smiled out at him from his morning
paper or, huge and shockingly colored, from the sheets on the bill
boards.

He formed the habit of calling on her in the afternoons at her hotel,
and he saw that she liked it. It was often lonely, she explained.
He sent her flowers and cigarettes, and he found her poised and
restful, and sometimes, when she was off guard, with the lines of
old suffering in her face.

She sat still. She didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too.
She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was
attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that
she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men came
and went, brought or sent small tribute, and she was pleased and
grateful. No more. The next week, or the week after, and other
men in other places would be doing the same things.

But he wondered about her, sometimes. Did she ever think of Judson
Clark, and the wreck he had made of her life? What of resentment