Mr. Vandeford's supper-party to the cast of "The Purple Slipper" and the friends from New York who had come down to see its try-out, lasted until two o'clock in the morning, but when it was over neither the moon, which was as full that night as Mr. Kent had become by coffee and cigars, nor Dago Italiana had retired, and both stayed on their jobs out at the south end of the board walk, where boards melt off into sand and ocean and sky. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had got about two thirds of the way along the painful stretch of autobiography, with which he was inflicting agony on himself by recounting to Miss Adair, when she raised her gray eyes to his with the faith and reverence still at their average level, even slightly higher, and stopped his punishment. "I understand exactly why people like you and Miss Hawtry don't marry each other," she astonished him by saying in all calmness. "Mr. Height explained it all to me the other day. Actors and actresses have peculiar temperaments that fly together when they ought not to, and fly apart when they ought to stay together. I know just how that is because I feel--" "Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, as he laid his hands on the shoulders of his author, who was standing close to him, with the moonlight full on her clear-cut, high-bred face, and he gave her a savage shake. "The whole crazy bunch will have to have law and order shot into 'em or the theatrical profession will follow horse-racing to the devil. If they don't give up unfaith and the double-cross Broadway will open some night and swallow them all. And here you come out of a real world and say to me--" "What did you think I was going to say?" demanded Miss Adair, pressing so close to him that it was impossible for him to administer another shake. "I don't know and I don't want to hear it. I'm afraid to have you say anything to me." "It was this: I was going to ask you what I would have done if you had been married to Miss Hawtry when I got to you and we had begun to produce our play together. It's different when men and women work together! Standards have to be broader. How do I know that I would have run away to--" "Don't, don't!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford as she crept still nearer to him and forcibly tried to open his arms for herself. "I'm punished. I've taught you myself! When I leave you how'll I ever know if I'm going to find you there when I come back?" "Well, how'd you expect to find me--me--there if you don't take me there?" Miss Adair pleaded as she tugged at his folded arms, with such energy that her polished thumb-nail slightly marked his iron wrists. "I'm not worthy, child, I'm not worthy," Mr. Vandeford answered with grim words, and his arms still taut against his breast. "You have to judge yourself with the same--same 'broad standards' I judge you by, like you told me to use. Please open your arms!" "I take those broad standards away from you." "Jesus Christ gave them to me, only I didn't understand in Adairville."