The Easiest Way | Page 8

her type, she found all sorts of excuses for her wrongdoing. She pretended that she was persecuted, a victim of circumstances, and was ever ready to explain away the viciousness of character, which was really responsible for her troubles.
In spite of her success on the stage, she was an indifferent actress. Her lack of true feeling, her abuse of the dramatic temperament in her private affairs, had been such as to make it impossible for her sincerely to impress audiences with genuine emotional power, and therefore, despite the influences which she always had at hand, she remained a mediocre artist.
Her meeting with Willard Brockton was, from her point of view, the best possible thing that could have happened. Brockton was a New York stock broker, and like many men of his tastes and means, was a good deal of a sensualist. Of morals he frankly confessed he had none, yet he was an honest sensualist for he played the game fair. He never forgot that he was a gentleman. He was perfectly candid about his amours and never expected more from a woman than he could give to her. He was honest in this, that he detested any man who sought to take advantage of a pure woman. He abhorred any man who deceived a woman. The same in love as in business, he believed that there was only one way to go through life, and that was to be straight with those with whom one deals. A master hand in stock manipulation and other questionable practices of Wall Street, he realized that he had to pit his cunning against the craft of others. He was not at all in sympathy with present-day business methods, but he did not see any particular reason why he should constitute himself a reformer. Although still in the prime of life, he cared nothing for society and held aloof from it. If he went to the trouble to keep in touch at all with people of his own set, it was simply for business reasons. What he seemed to delight in most was the life of Bohemia, with its easy camaraderie, its lax moral code, its contempt for the conventions. He enjoyed the company of women of facile virtue, the gay little supper parties after the theatre, and the glass that inebriates and cheers, in a word, he enjoyed going the pace that kills. He was a man of many liasons, but none were as serious or had lasted so long as his present pact with Laura Murdock. No woman before had been clever enough to hold him. He appeared very fond of her, and completely under her influence. His friends shook their heads, looked wise, and took and gave odds that he would be so foolish as to marry her.
The couple took seats at a table, the cynosure of all eyes. Every head turned in their direction, conversations were temporarily suspended and there was much whispering and craning of necks, to get a glimpse of the young woman whose reputation, or lack of it, was already so notorious. Far from being embarrassed at this display of public interest, Laura seemed to enjoy the attention she excited. Languidly sinking into her seat, she said to her escort with a smile:
"Don't they stare? You'd think they had never seen a woman before."
Brockton laughed as he lit a fresh cigar.
"How do you know they're staring at you? I'm not such a bad looker myself."
Laura ran over the menu to see what there was to tempt her appetite.
"Bring me some lobster," she said to the waiter.
"And a bottle of wine--Moet and Chandon white seal," broke in Brockton, "frappé--you understand, and make it a rush order. I have to get away in a few minutes."
Laura pursed her delicately chiseled lips together in a pout. She liked to do that on every possible occasion, because, having practiced it at home before the mirror, she thought it looked cunning.
"You're surely going to give yourself time to eat a bite, aren't you?" she cried in affected dismay.
The broker looked at his watch.
"I must be in Boston early to-morrow morning. The express leaves the Grand Central at 12:15. I've just time to drink a glass of wine and sprint for the train. That's why I kept the taxi waiting outside. I hate to go. I assure you I'd much rather sit here with you. But go I must."
As far as his amours were concerned, women of the Laura Murdock and Elfie St. Clair type appealed strongly to the broker. Not only did he enjoy their bohemianism and careless good-fellowship, but he entered fully into the spirit of their way of living. He professed to understand them and in a measure to sympathize with them. Entirely without humbug or cant, he recognized that