Half a Rogue | Page 7

been following you. A telephone brought me to
the restaurant. The rest you know. It was simple."
"Very simple," laconically.
"You listened and believed. I have been watching you. You believed
everything I have told you. You have even been calculating how this
scene might go in a play. Have I convinced you that I have the ability
to act?"
Warrington folded the letter and balanced it on his palm.
"You have fooled me completely; that ought to be sufficient
recommendation."
"Thank you." But her eyes were eager with anxiety.
"Miss Challoner, I apologize for this letter. I do more than that. I
promise not to leave this house till you agree to call at the theater at ten
to-morrow morning." He was smiling, and Warrington had a pleasant
smile. He had an idea besides. "Good fortune put it into my head to
follow you here. I see it all now, quite plainly. I am in a peculiar
difficulty, and I honestly believe that you can help me out of it. How
long would it take you to learn a leading part? In fact, the principal
part?"
"A week."
"Have you had any experience?"
"A short season out west in a stock company."
"Good!"
"And I love work."
"Do not build any great hopes," he warned, "for your chance depends
upon the whim of another woman. But you have my word and my good

offices that something shall be put in your way. You will come at ten?"
drawing on his gloves.
"Promptly."
"I believe that we both have been wise to-night; though it is true that a
man dislikes being a fool and having it made manifest."
"And how about the woman scorned?" with an enchanting smile.
"It is kismet," he acknowledged.
Chapter II

Warrington laid down his pen, brushed his smarting eyes, lighted his
pipe, and tilted back his chair. With his hands clasped behind his head,
he fell into a waking dream, that familiar pastime of the creative mind.
It was half after nine, and he had been writing steadily since seven. The
scenario was done; the villain had lighted his last cigarette, the hero
had put his arms protectingly around the heroine, and the irascible rich
uncle had been brought to terms. All this, of course, figuratively
speaking; for no one ever knew what the plot of that particular play was,
insomuch as Warrington never submitted the scenario to his manager,
an act which caused almost a serious rupture between them. But
to-night his puppets were moving hither and thither across the stage,
pulsing with life; they were making entrances and exits; developing this
climax and that; with wit and satire, humor and pathos. It was all very
real to the dreamer.
The manuscript lay scattered about the top of his broad flat desk, and
the floor beside the waste-basket was flaked with the remains of
various futile lines and epigrams. The ash-pan was littered with burnt
matches, ends of cigars and pipe tobacco, while the ash-crumbs
speckled all dark objects, not excepting the green rug under his feet.
Warrington smoked incessantly while at work, now a cigarette, now a
cigar, now a pipe. Specialists declare with cold authoritative

positiveness that the use of tobacco blunts the thought, dulls the edge of
invention; but Warrington knew better. Many a night he had thrown his
coat over his smoking-jacket and dashed down the street to the corner
drug-store for a fresh supply of tobacco. He simply could not work
without it. I do not know that he saw his heroes and heroines any
plainer for the smoke; but I do know that when their creator held a
cigar between his teeth, they frowned less, and the spirit of malice and
irony, of which he was master, became subdued.
Warrington was thirty-five now. The grey hair at the temples and the
freshness of his complexion gave him a singularly youthful appearance.
His mouth was even-lipped and rather pleasure-loving, which, without
the balance of a strong nose, would have appealed to you as effeminate.
Warrington's was what the wise phrenologists call the fighting nose;
not pugnacious, but the nose of a man who will fight for what he
believes to be right, fight bitterly and fearlessly. To-day he was famous,
but only yesterday he had been fighting, retreating, throwing up this
redoubt, digging this trench; fighting, fighting. Poverty, ignorance and
contempt he fought; fought dishonesty, and vice, and treachery, and
discouragement.
Presently he leaned toward the desk and picked up a letter. He read it
thoughtfully, and his brows drew together. A smile, whimsically sad,
stirred his lips, and was gone. It was written by a girl or a very young
woman. There was no signature, no address, no veiled request for an
autograph. It was one of those letters