"I mean it. I must be somebody. I'm nobody now." "You are my dearest love." "I must be more, to be your wife. Give me time to learn to act. When I am a success--" "No more of that!" There was definite resolution in the interruption. "You must give up all thought of the stage." "But I want to--" "It's not the place for you--for my wife that is to be." "But we're not to be married for a long time, you say." "I'm a poor man, dear--I have enough for one, not enough for two. It may be only weeks, it may be months or years before my work begins to pay." "But meantime I must live--support myself, somehow." "You will leave that to me?" "I must do something--be independent--" "Won't you leave it all to me? I will arrange everything--" "I'll do whatever you wish me to." "And forget the stage--?" "I don't know--I'll try, Jack." "You must, dear one." It was not a time for disagreements. Joan clung more closely to him. The issue languished in default, was forgotten for the time.... Transports ebbed: the faintest premonitory symptoms of a return to something resembling sanity made their appearance; of a sudden Matthias remembered the hour. "Do you know," he said with tender gravity, having consulted his watch, "it's after eleven?" "It doesn't seem possible," she laughed happily. "And I'm hungry," he announced. "Aren't you?" She dared to be as frank as he: "Famished!" "Come along, then! Run, get your hat. It gives us an excuse for at least two hours more...." By the time she had repaired the damage this miracle had wrought with her appearance, Matthias had walked to the Astor and brought back a taxicab. The attention affected Joan with a poignant and exquisite sense of happiness. It was only her second ride in a motor vehicle. The top being down, they sat very circumspectly apart; but Matthias captured her hand and eye spoke to eye with secret laughter of delight, each reading the other's longing thought. The speed of the cab and its sudden slackening as it picked its path down Broadway, the flow of cool air against her face, the swimming maze of lights through which they sped, the sense of luxury and protection, added the last touch of delirious pleasure to Joan's mood. Matthias had chosen the café of "Old Martin's," at Twenty-sixth Street, the first place that suggested itself as one where they could sup without the girl being made to feel out of place in her modest work-a-day attire; but his thoughtfulness was misapplied: Joan was exalted beyond such annoyances; and those feminine glances which she detected, of pity, disdain, and jealousy, she took complacently as envious tributes to her prettiness and her conquest.